IV

Aisling had taken her responsibilities about Elizabeth very seriously indeed. Not everyone was given a foreigner of their own to look after at the age of ten. Admittedly there were compensations like the beautiful Monica who had a white front and a purr like an engine and an endless capacity for running after bits of string and rubber balls. And another was that she could get away with lots of things by ‘having to help Elizabeth’. She never had to help with the clearing of the table at home nor the washing-up on Peggy’s half day. At school she could get out of extra homework.

‘I can’t Sister, I really can’t, I have to show Elizabeth how we do things. Honestly Sister.’

And she thought she was doing a good job. Day by day Elizabeth began to appear more confident. That anxious upturned look was getting less frequent. Aisling noticed that she didn’t say sorry so much. She still wasn’t very forthcoming about secrets and confidences and though Aisling pressed her about a whole variety of subjects she seemed withdrawn.

‘But go on tell me about school… tell me about Monica … the first Monica.’

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ Elizabeth would say.

‘Oh go on, go on. I tell you everything.’

‘Well, she was Monica Hart. She used to sit near me, that’s all.’

‘That’s all?’ Aisling was not only disappointed, she felt that Elizabeth was holding out on her. There must have been

more.

Or about birthdays. What did Elizabeth do, who came to the house, what did she get as presents?

Elizabeth had got a cardigan last May when she had been

 

ten, and a box of paints. Yes, that was all. No, no party. Yes, perhaps some of the girls at school had parties. No, not Monica Hart. Who did she miss most? Well Miss James. Miss James was very nice. Nicer than Sister Mary? Well different. Nicer in a way because she wasn’t a Holy Sister. You know, more a real person. Yes, she missed Miss James most.

‘Apart from your Mam and Dad,’ Aisling added just to have the record straight.

‘Oh yes. You said at school. Of course I miss my Mum and Dad.’

Aisling used to include Elizabeth’s parents in her prayers.

‘God bless me and make me good, and God bless Mam and Dad, and Peggy and Sean and Maureen and Eamonn and Donal and Niamh, and Sister Mary, and everyone in Kilgarret, and everyone in Wicklow, and in Ireland, and in the world. And God bless Elizabeth and make sure that her parents, Auntie Violet and Uncle George, are safe during all the things that are happening in London.’

Elizabeth used to say thank you at the end of these prayers which were chanted from the end of Aisling’s bed. But Aisling pointed out that she wasn’t saying them to Elizabeth, just to God.

Sometimes Elizabeth wondered what Mother would do if Aisling ran up to her and called her Auntie Violet. She was sure that Mother would think Aisling and all the O’Connors very rough. Which, of course, they were. But she hoped that Mother wouldn’t come over and see them just yet anyway. If Mother came now she might take Elizabeth away. Mother hated dirt, and really sometimes the house was very dirty.

Nobody ever cleaned the bathroom, and the kitchen had bits of food all over it, not just under nice food covers like Mother had. Mother would never understand sitting at a table where the cloth was full of stains, where nobody had their own napkin ring, where if something fell on the floor it was picked up and eaten as often as not. Mother had been here years and years ago and only remembered that it had been dirty. Elizabeth feared that it might have got even worse since those days.

Even in a few short weeks Elizabeth had become very defensive about her new home; she would hate to hear Mother criticise it, or Father to make a disparaging remark about the way they lived. When Sister Mary had corrected Aisling in class the other day Elizabeth’s face had burned.

‘Sit up straight child and tie that carroty hair back. Now do you hear me, Aisling O’Connor, don’t come into this classroom tomorrow without a bow on all that streelish hair.’

Elizabeth had been offended on Aisling’s behalf. To call her beautiful hair ‘carroty’. It was a great insult. Miss James would never have said anything about a pupil’s appearance. It just wasn’t done. But funnily, Aisling hadn’t minded at all; she had just shaken it back, giggled at Elizabeth and, when Sister Mary’s back was turned, made a face at her retreating presence which made all the other girls stuff their hands into their mouths to prevent a squeak escaping.

The other girls were from farms near Kilgarret, or else their parents had small businesses in the town. It was all so different here from home. Hardly anyone’s father went out to work at a place and then came home from it in the evening. There was a bank but there only seemed to be two people in it, not like Father’s bank. Eileen had pointed it out to her one day, as she pointed out lots of things which had some kind of link with home.

The pupils in the convent welcomed Elizabeth as a novelty but because she was so shy and timid some of them lost interest in her fairly quickly. This in itself was a relief, as she hated being the object of their attention. Aisling, as her self-appointed knight-in-armour, was often more of a menace than a help.

When the girls asked her about her other school, Aisling would intervene on her behalf… .

‘She doesn’t know much about it. It was bombed, you see, in the blitz. Everyone dead and buried in the rubble… .’ Sometimes Elizabeth would protest afterwards.

‘Honestly Aisling … you shouldn’t say that, I don’t think the school is all in rubble … it’s not true.’

 

‘Oh, it might be,’ Aisling would say airily. ‘Anyway, you talk so little about your life in London people think it’s funny. It’s better to have an excuse.’

Did she talk very little? Possibly. Mother hadn’t encouraged long tales with no middles or ends like Aisling, Eamonn and Donal related about their doings … Mother hadn’t been interested to enquire about the other girls at school and had even been bored when she talked about Miss James. It was all so different.

Nothing had led Elizabeth to expect their passionate interest in her soul. It had been explained to the class that since she was of the Protestant faith she would read her Bible during catechism classes. Green with envy for a lifestyle that didn’t include five hard questions of catechism each evening, the others pestered Elizabeth about her own particular route to God.

‘But you don’t go to church, not even the Protestant church,’ Joannie Murray persisted.

‘No. I … Auntie Eileen said she would take me … but, no. It’s a bit different you see,’ Elizabeth stammered.

‘But don’t you have to go to some church even if it’s only a Protestant church?’ Joannie Murray hated things to be inconclusive.

‘Well… yes if you can. I think.’

‘Why don’t you go to the Protestant church then? It’s just beside you … it’s nearer than our church and we all go up the hill to our church. Every Sunday and holidays of obligation. Otherwise we’d go to hell. Why won’t you have to go to hell?’

Aisling was usually at hand.

‘It’s different for her. She didn’t have the gift of faith.’

This satisfied some of them but not all.

‘The gift of faith is only hearing about God, she’s heard about God from us now.’

Aisling found this a hard one to deal with.

‘Sister Mary said that Reverend Mother knows all about Elizabeth not going to church and says that for her brand of Protestant religion that’s all right. Not all of the types of Protestants have to go to church you know.’ This was greeted with some doubt so she went on triumphantly, ‘After all, for all we know she mightn’t have been baptised.’

‘Weren’t you baptised?’ Joannie Murray examined Elizabeth like a possible leper. ‘Oh you must have been baptised, mustn’t you?’

‘Um,’ said Elizabeth.

‘Well were you?’ Aisling the Defender lost her patience and forgot her role momentarily. Really there were times when Elizabeth was very vague. Imagine not knowing whether you were baptised or not.

‘Christened do you mean?’

‘Yes, of course. Baptism.’

‘I did have a christening robe,’ Elizabeth recalled. It was in a box between layers of paper, and smelling of moth balls. That seemed to settle it. She had been baptised. Now the knotty problem. As a baptised Christian, shouldn’t she be going to a church of some kind? Aisling was at a loss. But only for a while.

‘We have no way of knowing whether she was baptised properly,’ she said firmly. ‘If not, then it doesn’t count.’

‘We could do it ourselves,” said Joannie Murray. ‘You know, pour the water and say the words at the same time.’

Elizabeth looked around like a rabbit caught in a trap. Her eyes pleaded with Aisling. Mutely she begged to be rescued. She was disappointed.

‘Not now,’ Aisling said authoritatively, ‘she has to have instruction first. When she’s been instructed in the faith then we’ll do it. We’ll do it at break in the cloakroom.’

‘How long will it take to instruct her?’ They were eager now, anxious for the adventure of baptising someone. Elizabeth was the first possibly unbaptised person they had met.

‘She’s full of original sin of course,’ said one of the girls. ‘If she died the way she is she’d have to go to limbo.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better for her to go to limbo than risk hell? I mean if we baptised her now and she didn’t know what she should do she might go to hell. She’s better off as she is until she knows the rules,’ Aisling insisted.

‘But how long will instructing her take?’ Elizabeth too

 

looked trustingly at Aisling. Instruction might only take ten minutes. It was hard to know with matters of faith.

‘About six months I think,’ Aisling said. They were disappointed and prepared to query her. ‘Sure she doesn’t even know a word of catechism. Not a word. There’d be no point in her being baptised until she knows it as well as the rest of us. It was just her bad luck that they didn’t do a proper job on her when she was a baby.’

‘Of course, they might have done it properly,’ Elizabeth piped up without very much hope.

‘Not a chance,’ said Aisling.

‘Probably didn’t get the water pouring and the words being said at the same time,’Joannie said sagely. ‘That’s the important thing.’

Her first Christmas in Kilgarret approached and Elizabeth was a much stronger and healthier child than the one who had crept across the square. Her skirt was even a little too tight around the waist and the pale face looked stronger and seemed less like Dresden china. Her voice was louder too. You now knew whether or not she was in the house.

Each week she wrote a letter home; Eileen added a note and then gave the child the envelope to post. None of them knew whether the sparse replies were due to the terrible chaos of London during the blitz or to the normal inertia of Violet. The newspapers had been filled with stories of the blitz. The Emergency, as the trouble continued to be called, had reached very serious proportions. An average of 200 tons of bombs fell on London an hour. One night in October the bombing had be.en so intense that it was almost impossible to imagine that any kind of normal life could go on.

Eileen said repeatedly that Violet was welcome to come to Kilgarret herself, and each time she wrote it she said a small prayer that she would not come. Not now, with everything so unsettled between Young Sean and his father. Not until they had time to do up the house in the spring. Not until she had a chance to put some manners on her own pack. She hadn’t realised how uncouth they must all be until she watched the dainty manners and considerate behaviour of Elizabeth. The

child stood up politely when an adult came into the room, she offered her chair, she held doors open. Eileen sighed. It would take a large bomb to get any of hers out of their chairs unless they felt like getting up. She didn’t question Elizabeth’s decision to come to mass on Sunday, regarding it as a further part of belonging. It meant that she had to join the Saturday night inspection of clean shoes, clean socks. Berets, hats, gloves and missals laid out. Hair washed, clean necks, clean nails. It was the one day in the week when Sean and Eileen O’Connor could see some sense in what they were doing, working until their bodies ached. To admire five shining children at mass, a kind of reward.

Elizabeth tried to remember whether she had known any church-going on this scale at home, but she could not recall it. Mr and Mrs Flint were ‘church types’, Mother had said, but she hadn’t known that it meant all this washing and shoe polishing and great masses of people walking to and from a building where you knew everyone.

The crib had been put up in the beginning of December. Great life-size figures of the Family in the stable and real straw. Aisling went to pray in front of it when mass was over, and put a penny into a big collection box which was covered in melted wax. This allowed you to light a candle and stick it with all the other lighted candles; apparently, if you did this you got a wish.

‘Do you get a wish even if you haven’t got the gift of faith?’ Elizabeth whispered on one occasion. Her wish would have been to receive a long cheerful letter from Mother and Father.

‘I don’t think so. Aisling considered the matter seriously. ‘No, I’ve never heard that you do. Better not waste the penny, keep it for sweets in Mangans.’

Christmas Day, for Elizabeth, had always been an anticlimax; so much looked forward to, so much talked about, but when it came it always seemed to bring some disapproval, or some other cause for complaint which she would pretend not to notice. Last year it had been one long discussion about rationing and arguments about how they could possibly manage. Elizabeth thought that the Day with the

 

O’Connors would be utterly perfect. She expected a storybook Christmas for the first time in her life.

For weeks they had all been making each other presents, and the cry of’ Don’t come in!’ arose whenever you went into a room unexpectedly. To Elizabeth’s great surprise, Aisling talked enthusiastically about Santa Klaus. Once or twice, Elizabeth had ventured a small doubt about him.

‘Do you think that there actually might not be a Santa Klaus, you know, the gifts might come from … somewhere else?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Aisling said. ‘Sure, where else would they come from?’ She had lit several candles asking God to remind Santa Klaus of her requests.

Elizabeth had changed a great deal in her four months with the O’Connors. Once upon a time, she would have said nothing and just hoped that things would turn out for the best. Now, however, she felt able to intervene.

‘Auntie Eileen?’

‘Yes, darling?’ Eileen was writing in the big household book she filled in every Saturday.

‘I don’t want to interfere but… you see, Aisling is praying to the Holy Family people in the church and asking them to tell Santa Klaus that she wants a bicycle … and, you know … just … I thought you should know as well, if you see what I mean, just in case she doesn’t tell you.’

Eileen pulled the child towards her affectionately. ‘Now, that’s very kind of you to tell me that,’ she said.

‘It’s not that I’m asking you to buy expensive things like that, it’s just that Aisling believes very strongly that what you tell Santa Klaus should be a secret, and she mightn’t tell you.’

‘Well, I’ll keep that information very carefully in my mind,’ said Eileen solemnly. ‘Run off with you, now.’

Christmas Eve was like a combination of Saturday nights with all the shoe polishing and neck washing, and the day of the Christmas play at school, all feverish excitement. Even grownup people like Maureen and her friend Berna were giggling, and Young Sean was happy and wrapping up parcels.

During the night Elizabeth heard the door open. She glanced worriedly over at Aisling’s bed but the red hair out on the pillow never stirred. Through half-closed eyes Elizabeth saw Sean place the bicycle, wrapped in brown paper and holly sprigs, at the end of Aisling’s bed. And to her amazement she saw a similar shape coming to the end of her own bed. Two sharp trickles of tears began in her eyes. They were such a kind family, she would never be able to thank them. She must really try to explain to Mother in her next letter how kind they were. Please could she find words that wouldn’t irritate Mother and make Mother feel that she was being criticised.

Then it was morning and there were screams of excitement as Aisling in pyjamas tore off the wrapping paper. As Elizabeth swung her legs out of bed, Aisling, her face flushed with happiness, came over and gave her a great hug. She forced herself to put her arms around Aisling too. Though this was a new experience and she was always nervous of something new. Up to now they had only linked arms when coming home from school. That had been the closest contact. But now it was a sea of affection and excitement and it almost drowned Elizabeth with its unfamiliarity.

But in no time there were shouts and calls, and squeaks and hoots on a trumpet, and more shouts… .

‘Down here in two minutes or Christmas or no Christmas you’ll feel the palm of my hand!’

It was still dark as they went up the hill to the church calling and wishing people Happy Christmas. Several people asked Elizabeth what she got in her stocking … and Doctor Lynch, Berna’s father, pinched her cheek and asked her was an Irish Christmas better than an English one. His wife pulled him away crossly.

There were sausages and eggs for breakfast, paper table napkins on the table. Niamh sat up in her high chair and gurgled at them. There was more suppressed excitement since presents were going to be given afterwards beside the fire. The big things had come in the night but the individual ones would come now, and then the girls could go out in the square with their bicycles, Maureen could parade with her new jacket and matching beret, Eamonn with his football

 

and boots, Donal with his scooter. Then it would be in again for the huge goose that was already cooking in the range.

There were oohs and aahs over the presents, the pincushions, the bookmarks, the dish painted as an ashtray for Da, the necklace made of carefully threaded beads. But there was the greatest applause for the presents that Maureen gave. For Mam there was beautiful soap, and for Da there was a proper man’s scarf. For Aisling and Elizabeth big bangles with coloured glass in them; for Eamonn a big light for his bicycle; for Donal a funny furry hat, and even for the baby a rattle. She had given her elder brother two matching hair brushes like gentlemen used in picture books, and for Peggy she had a sparkling brooch.

Maureen had been the last to do the distributing. She had asked if she could be and it seemed a glorious end to the present-giving. The air was so full of gratitude and re-examination of gifts that none of them except Elizabeth noted the anxious glances exchanged between Auntie Eileen and Uncle Sean. She couldn’t interpret them it

was as if they alone had seen some hidden disaster. Uncle Sean evidently had decided to let Auntie Eileen deal with it, whatever it was. Elizabeth’s face was reddening with anxiety, she knew it was.

‘Right everyone, clear up all the mess, paper into this box, string into that, and don’t lose anything? Eileen supervised a huge sweep on the room. ‘Now all of you out in the square, yes, you too, Sean, get a bit of exercise … and Donal, of course you can child … wrap up well. No, leave your furry hat here, that’s the boy.’

In minutes she had the room cleared of people and presents. Elizabeth’s heart pounded because she knew something was very wrong. She went into the kitchen with Peggy and helped to fold the paper up into squares. Peggy kept up a monologue about how much there was to be done for the meal and how little help anyone gave … but she was only muttering, and didn’t expect any answer.

The voices came clearly from the next room.

‘No, Maureen, sit down. Come on sit down… .’

‘I don’t know what you mean Ma, what is it?’

‘Maureen, where did you get the money to pay for these things … where?’

‘Ma, I don’t know what you mean. I saved up my pocket money like everyone else… . Of course I did Ma.’

‘We’re not fools Maureen … look at these things. They cost a fortune. That soap you bought your mother … it’s fifteen shillings. I saw it myself in the chemist.’

‘But Da, I didn’t___’

‘Just tell us where you got the money child, that’s all your father and I want to know. Tell us quickly and don’t ruin the day for all the rest of them.’

‘I never took any of your money Mam, you can look in your desk, I didn’t take a penny… .’

‘I didn’t miss anything Sean.’

‘And I didn’t touch anything in your pocket, Da… .’

‘Come on, Maureen, you get a shilling a week, you have pounds’ worth of stuff here. Pounds and pounds. Can’t you see your mother and I are heart-scalded over it… .’

‘Is this the thanks I get for giving you nice Christmas presents… .’ Maureen had begun to cry. ‘Is this … all… you … say, accuse me of stealing from you?”

‘Well, the only other alternative … is that you stole them from the shops.’ Eileen’s voice was shaking as she voiced the suspicion.

‘I bought them,’ persisted Maureen.

‘God almighty, those hair brushes you gave Sean, they’re over two pounds!’ roared Sean. ‘You’re not leaving this room till we know. Christmas dinner or no Christmas dinner… if I have to shake every bone out of your body, I’ll find out. Don’t treat us like fools. Bought them indeed… .’

‘You’ll have to tell us soon or later, your father is right. Tell us now.’

‘I bought you Christmas presents to please you and this is all you say… .’

‘I’m going to go up to Doctor Lynch’s house and see whether their family got fine presents from that Berna of theirs. Maybe the two of you were in this together. Maybe Berna will tell us if you won’t… .’

‘No!’ it was a scream. ‘No Da, don’t go. Please don’t go.’

 

There were sobs from Eileen, and shocked noises and wailings from Maureen as well as her mother. There was the sound of great slappings and a chair turning over. Elizabeth heard Aunt Eileen pleading with Uncle Sean not to be so hard.

‘Leave her, Sean, leave her till you calm down.’

‘Calm down. Stealing from every other trader in the town. Into their shops with that brat of a Lynch girl. Five shops, five families who’ve done business with us for years and this brat goes in and steals from them. Jesus Christ, what’s there to be calm about … you’re going in to every one of them when the shops open. Every single one of them do you hear, every item will be returned. And the Lynches will be told too, mind that. They’re not going to live in innocence over the pair of thieves we have stalking the town… .’

Elizabeth exchanged a fearful glance with Peggy as they heard another blow and another scream.

‘Don’t you be minding all that now,’ said Peggy. ‘Better not to poke your nose into others’ affairs. Better to hear nothing and say nothing.’

‘I know,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But it’s going to spoil Christmas.’

‘Not at all,’ said Peggy. ‘We’ll have a grand Christmas.’

‘Ah, Da you can’t hit a girl like that, stop it, Da, stop it!’

‘Go away, Sean, I don’t want you here, get out, it’s my business.’

‘Da, you can’t hit Maureen like that, Ma stop him, he’s hit her on the head. Stop it, Da, stop it, you’re too big, you’ll kill her.’

Elizabeth fled from the kitchen and got her new bicycle. Round and round the square she cycled, trying to brush the tears out of her eyes. She didn’t want the others to ask her what was wrong. She had no hope that they would even get together for the goose now. Aunt Eileen had probably gone to the bedroom, Sean gone off out after the row with his father. Uncle Sean might have taken the keys and gone back into the store, and Maureen heaven

knew what would happen to Maureen. It was all turning out badly like everything always did. It was so unfair.

Other children who lived in the square had bicycles too and tricycles and scooters; there were marvellous tales about how Martin Ryan had seen the leg of Santa disappearing up a chimney and Maire Kennedy had heard the reindeer coming into the square. Aisling had already learned how to do tricks on her new bicycle … she was swooping around where the bus would stop on a normal day with both hands spread out wide and her red hair flying behind her. She saw Elizabeth looking at her and pedalled over.

‘What’s wrong, you look sad?’ she asked.

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘Are you thinking of your own family and being a bit lonely?’ Sometimes Aisling got great fits of concern over Elizabeth’s temporary orphan status.

‘Well, a bit,’ Elizabeth lied.

‘You have our family now, and we’ll have a grand Christmas,’ she said firmly.

At that moment, the O’Connors were called from the top of the steps by Eileen.

‘Come on my four. Wash hands and ready for Christmas Feast____’

She looked quite calm again, Elizabeth thought, and then felt a little lift at being called one of her four. Unwillingly, Eamonn, Donal and Aisling gathered their gifts and left their friends. A cursory hand wash was done and all hands dried simultaneously on a wet towel. The table was all set and Christmas crackers criss-crossed between each plate. As they slid to their places, Aunt Eileen said almost casually, ‘Oh, by the way, there’s been a mistake about some of the presents, could you give Maureen back what she gave you; there was a mistake about some of the prices. It has to be sorted out.’ There was a bit of a grumble, a demand for reassurance that he would still get his bicycle light back from Eamonn. But it was over. The crisis was somehow finished. Maureen’s eyes were very red, and so were Young Sean’s. But no comment was made, and they pulled crackers with everyone else.

And afterwards when there were records on the gramophone there was dancing. Everyone danced except Eamonn

 

who said it was silly, but he was in charge of winding up the gramophone which was a great help.

And as Elizabeth saw Uncle Sean dance a waltz with Maureen and noticed her lean her head against his jacket and cry, she thought she would never understand them in a million years.

The new term began with cold weather and Sister Mary in a very bad humour. She had chilblains and wore mittens, her fingers seemed swollen and purple and she had a racking cough. Donal was wheezing again, and Eileen kept him at home.

Maureen had gone to each of the shops where the Christmas gifts had been ‘bought’. In front of Eileen she had handed them back, saying that she had taken them by mistake during her Christmas shopping. Nowhere was she met with anything but kindness. As soon as she left the shop, face burning with shame, the shopkeepers softened the humiliation for Eileen by saying that it was all that young Berna Lynch’s doing, a wild bold strap if ever there was one; of course, with all the trouble the poor mother had with the doctor it was hard to know who to blame. They said that poor Maureen had had enough punishment by having to face them and told Eileen to forget it.

Sean had asked the convent what time Maureen’s classes ended each day and insisted that she be home fifteen minutes later. He asked her to come into the shop and present herself to him and then to return to the house and begin her homework. Berna Lynch was not to come inside their home again,’and Maureen was not to enter hers.

Young Sean read that in England an Air Training Corps had been started for boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. He read it out to his father as proof that seventeen was a man’s age already. His father said that he didn’t care if the British Empire reached into playpens and took their own boys out to fight at the age of four, no son of his, no Irishman of any decency was going to go and fight with them in further attempts to conquer the globe.

Aisling, annoyed by all the efforts to make her less giddy and to extract more work from her, decided that she would organise a baptism for Elizabeth to liven up the term. They fixed the date for 2 February, the Feast of the Purification. Aisling had an instinct that they should keep the baptism a secret. This instinct was shared by the other girls in the class.

It took place on the stone floor of the Junior Girls’ cloakroom, less attractive than the River Jordan where Jesus had his baptism, according to the nice picture in the school corridor. Water from four holy water fonts had been poured into a school mug. Joannie Murray and Aisling had the words of the ceremony written out in case they forgot them … which Elizabeth thought added to the importance and magic of it all. She knelt, and then in front of all the class they poured the water and said, ‘I baptise thee in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen!’ There was a silence; then they all clapped.

Elizabeth stood up. Her pale hair was stuck to her head, her shoulders were dripping. She didn’t like to rub away the water, as it was holy water and was special. She squeezed Aisling’s hand.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

Aisling put her arm around her.

‘You’ll find it all a lot easier now,’ she said.

Her letters from Mother did not arrive every week. Aunt Eileen’s explanation was always the terrible postal system.

‘The poor woman is demented posting you letters, it’s just that things are so bad over there it could take days to clear a post box.’ And later there was the excuse of Violet’s work. ‘Now your mother must be worn out from all that war work. We’ve no idea here at all how desperate things must be for them.’

Violet had written just after Christmas to say that she had volunteered for the WAAFS but the ridiculous people were only taking single people or childless people or people under thirty. It was so foolish of them since Violet would have been much more suitable than these silly girls only interested in face powder and wearing a smart uniform. It was the same

 

apparently with the Army and the Navy so Violet wasn’t going to keep on offering. She was doing her bit with the WAYS of course and it was fairly harrowing.

None of these initials meant anything to Elizabeth but she discovered an unexpected ally in Aisling’s elder brother, Sean. He used to read the letters with her and explain what WAAFS were. It wasn’t the same as being in the real Air Force, he assured her, but it was the best women could be. Her mother would wear a uniform, he told her, and do drilling and training and have her kit examined every day. This didn’t seem at all likely. Elizabeth couldn’t imagine Mother in a dark uniform like a policeman or a bus conductor. Mother wore cardigans and skirts. She couldn’t get into rough clothes could she?

Sean, in his conversations with her, told her far more about London than Mother’s letters did. He said that the Women’s Voluntary Service wasn’t just a lot of ladies doing charity things like Aunt Eileen had thought; they didn’t make cakes and have coffee mornings, they were down there in the rubble on the streets finding bodies and feeding poor people and clothing them. He showed her articles in the papers about the evacuation and the finding of foster homes. He read to her that some families had turned out to be so poor and badly looked after that the children had slept on the floor and had lice all over them. Women in the WAAFS who had never seen such poverty were having to cope with it.

Sean’s eyes almost shone as he talked about the heroism. Elizabeth didn’t like to tell him that she felt sure her mother could not possibly have got caught up in such earthy work as delousing children. It was so unusual and unexpected to see him talkative that she listened and felt flattered.

His father would grunt when he heard the tales his son would tell. ‘There’s plenty of charity work goes on in this country too you know… .’ When he heard of women training for war he laughed. ‘Oh, we had women soldiers here long before they had them over in England … what do you think Countess Markievicz was doing?’

When Sean told Elizabeth about boys of his own age and younger joining an Air Corps recruiting scheme by the hundred every day… thousands within weeks… his father lost his temper.

‘God, it would be a relief if you joined them some day, I tell you that, instead of all this bellyaching about what a great lot they are over there.’

Eileen the peacemaker, darning from the huge bag that was always beside her chair, looked up mildly.

‘Ah, Sean, leave the boy alone, isn’t he just praising the people for doing so much to defend their country … wouldn’t we do the same here but thank God we don’t have to. That’s all he’s saying.’

‘That’s all he’d better be saying,’ Sean said.

On the first day of May Sister Bonaventure toured the classrooms in the convent to inspect the altars for Our Lady. May was Our Lady’s special month and it was an act of love and daughterly respect to our heavenly mother to decorate a little altar in front of her statue. Children who lived out in the country had brought bluebells and primroses, fresh white cloths and clean vases everywhere. Sister Bonaventure was very pleased. As she was leaving the classroom that nice little English refugee who was staying with the O’Connors held the door open for her.

‘Settling in all right child?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes, Sister,’ the child flushed politely.

Sister Bonaventure patted her on the head.

It had been no trouble at all taking in a non-Catholic, she thought with pleasure, she was very glad she agreed.

On the first day of May, Eileen opened a letter from Violet which had a ten-shilling note pinned to it. It was to buy birthday presents for Elizabeth and Aisling there

was only ten days’ difference between them. Eileen thought ruefully of all the years that she had parcelled up some little trinket for Violet’s daughter in England and that this was the first time that Aisling had ever been remembered. It must have been through Elizabeth’s letters. Eileen hoped that the child hadn’t asked too openly for a present.

 

‘It’s impossible to buy anything here, will you do it?’ Violet wrote.

Everything is in chaos. I’m glad now that I wasn’t accepted into the WAAFs, they’ve passed laws to stop you getting out … it’s in for the duration like men. We’ve all had to register for mobilisation. I could be sent off to some munitions factory in the country, the Lord knows where. George is an ARP and he’s out every night with the other wards … I think they quite enjoy it they

behave like schoolboys, and he brings the most extraordinary people back to breakfast sometimes. Really rough men.

This week the cheese ration goes down to one ounce … think of it, one ounce a week. Nobody has any clothes and we are living like paupers because everything is in short supply.

You are awfully good to look after Elizabeth for us. And to get her to write all those letters. It’s very expensive on stamps for you … so I shan’t mind if she misses a week now and then. George says to thank you too … he’s very impressed that you should take in a total stranger … but then he doesn’t understand the bloodbrothership of St Mark’s and all we went through.

Thank you again my dear. As ever, Violet

Yes, as ever remembering bloodbrothership to relieve her conscience but not remembering a card or a letter to the child. Eileen knew that this was it as far as the birthday was concerned. Her only child was going to be eleven years of age in a foreign country with no acknowledgement from her home.

On that first day of May, young Sister Helen, Donal’s teacher, wrote a note to his mother saying that the little boy was flushed and became overexcited and wheezed whenever he was asked a question. Perhaps his asthma hadn’t entirely cleared? Should she talk to the doctor again, because it might be something in the classroom that brought it on? Sister Helen said that the child was so eager to learn it was very distressing to see him held back by his wheezing attacks. She put the note in an envelope and packed it in his schoolbag.

‘Is it about me, Sister?’ he asked with his face reddening.

‘There’s not a bad word in it, Donal,’ she said. ‘I’m telling your mother that you’re one of the hardest-working boys in the class.’

He reddened even more with pleasure and bit his lip with excitement over it all.

On that first day of May, Maureen got the letter from the hospital which said that if her examination results were satisfactory she could have a place in the hospital in Dublin. She wrote a note about it to Berna Lynch, since the two girls did not meet. But Berna had new friends now and didn’t reply. Maureen decided that it didn’t matter. She must work like a demon for the next six weeks and pass her exams.

And on that first day of May, Aisling and Elizabeth went into the shop after school to deliver a message. Da was to come home please for a minute, Mam wanted to talk to him.

‘Well, how can I come home?’ Sean asked crossly. ‘Who’ll look after the place? That lout of a son of mine is too good to be in here apparently … he hasn’t been seen since lunchtime. …”

‘Mam said to bring you.’ Aisling was swinging out on the handles of the door that led to the back yard. ‘She said no matter what.’

‘Is she sick or something?’ Sean was irritated. He pulled Aisling off the door and she shied away.

‘No, Uncle Sean, she’s not ill, she’s sitting at her desk up in the sitting room, but she said it was important.’

‘Well, tell her to come down to me if it’s that important,’ he said, about to turn away… .

‘She said no matter what.’ Aisling put on a baby voice.

In one movement Sean pulled off his dun-coloured coat, picked up his jacket from a nail, and strode to the door calling over his shoulder, ‘Come on you two, outa there. We’ve enough annoyance without the two of you breaking the tools in here.’ He put the ‘Back in Five Minutes’ notice on the

 

door. He had no one but poor Jemmy to help him today. Jemmy looked at him with dulled eyes. It never occurred to him that the master would let him look after the shop. He came out and stood in the street patiently.

The girls trotted home after Sean, arriving in time to hear the news. Young Sean had gone to Dublin on the lunchtime bus. He was taking the boat to Holyhead tonight. He had said to Mam that if they brought him back he’d just go again. They couldn’t keep him from doing what everyone wanted to do, fight in the war.

‘Let him go!’ roared Sean. ‘Let him go, God damn him and blast him to hell forever!’

Elizabeth never told Violet about Sean’s leaving. She didn’t know why. It seemed somehow disloyal to describe any unhappiness, any scenes in the household. It was as if she were telling tales. Anyway there weren’t any words. Nothing could tell anyone who wasn’t there what it was like, even if anyone wanted to tell. About the weeks when Uncle Sean had gone down three or four nights a week to Maher’s and had come home very late banging doors and singing bits of ‘The Soldier’s Song’. Or other times when things seemed to be going calmly and someone mentioned the war or rations or the time when Germany invaded Russia. Then Uncle Sean would laugh; a horrible kind of sound that only looked like a laugh when you saw his face grinning but didn’t sound like one; and he would say, ‘Ah sure, they’ve no trouble nowadays, the Allies. Haven’t they got bould Sean O’Connor from Kilgarret on their side and he’s a big man. He’ll be eighteen next authumn, mind. He’ll be helping them plan their strategies out there… .’

There was no news, no word. Bit by bit Eileen stopped looking out the window in case he was getting off the bus in the square. Bit by bit Peggy stopped setting places for him at table and even moved a chair out of the room. Bit by bit his bedroom became a boxroom. Things that weren’t needed ended up in Sean’s room. Once Peggy called it a boxroom, and that day Eileen went up and cleared it out, distributing things all around the house and saying loudly that it was Sean’s room and she’d thank everyone to remember that.

But soon it went back to being a boxroom again. People didn’t ask for news any more. Elizabeth begged Aunt Eileen not to worry about having a party for her birthday, she never

 

had one at home, anyway, she explained. Auntie Eileen had hugged her and cried and cried into her hair. ‘You’re a lovely little girl,’ she had said over and over. ‘That’s what you are, a lovely little girl.’

Aisling’s birthday, ten days later, was firmly celebrated. It was now four full weeks since Sean had left. Aisling had said to Dad that she was going to invite six girls from the class to tea, Mam had said she could. There would be a cake and games and if Da was going to spoil everything and make them all ashamed of him like Berna Lynch’s father had done at one of her birthday parties then could he go off to Maher’s early and not come back till they were finished. Elizabeth trembled when she heard this ultimatum but it turned out to be the right action. Uncle Sean didn’t stop being bitter, and laughing those imitation laughs but he did stop shouting and banging doors and smelling like the smell you got when you went into Maher’s through the back door.

By the time that Maureen had got her Leaving Certificate things had become normal enough for a real family celebration. Everyone ignored Sean’s remarks about Maureen now being his eldest child. Nobody picked him up on it, not even Donal who had a very literal mind. They all went to Dublin to settle Maureen into her new life. All except Peggy and Niamh, and they had been given so many instructions and warnings by Eileen that even Sean had to laugh.

‘You’ve set so many spies on her that she’ll be unable to move.’

‘She’s a desperate eejit, you know,’ Eileen had said unguardedly. ‘She’d lie down on our bed for half of Kilgarret if I hadn’t put the fear of God into her. Haven’t we got enough to occupy us without Peggy producing another baby for us by spring?’ This comment mystified Aisling and Elizabeth.

They went to Dublin in the back of a lorry which had seats put in it and rugs over the seats. Donal sat in the driving compartment with Da and Mr Moriarty who was giving them the lift. He had to go to Dublin to get medical supplies for the chemist so he got his petrol easily. There was rationing in Ireland too but not nearly as bad as back in London; even milk and eggs were rationed there, Elizabeth learned in her letters from home. Mother had got a job now as a bookkeeper in a munitions factory. She couldn’t say where the factory was in case any Germans read the letter and came and dropped bombs on it. Elizabeth wished she could have shown Sean the letter. He would have been very excited about it.

They bumped along the road from Wicklow, past the sea on their right.

‘Your home is just over there, Elizabeth,’ Eileen said once. She noticed that Elizabeth didn’t respond as she normally did when someone brought her into the conversation. ‘I mean your other home,’ Eileen added hastily, and this time Elizabeth smiled.

Mrs Moriarty, all wrapped up, sat in the back of the truck with her two daughters, who were going to the same hospital. Tonight they would all see the three girls off into their nurses’ home and meet the nuns who ran it; then the Moriartys would go to their relations in Blackrock and the O’Connors to stay in the guesthouse in Dunlaoghaire where Eileen’s cousin, Gretta, did a good business. They had eggs, and butter for her, ham and a chicken. It would more than pay for the night for the six of them in two rooms. Gretta would be delighted with the country food; she had hinted more than once that they could even sell her food and make a handsome profit since so many people getting on the boat were anxious to bring a little extra across the water. Big turkeys had been known to travel to England plucked and well wrapped up in blankets and cooed over as if they were babies. Customs men didn’t poke their noses too deeply into shawls containing babies.

But Eileen didn’t want to get involved in the black market. She was happy to use the food to pay for the outing.

Maureen’s hospital looked very forbidding. Elizabeth thought it looked a frightening place, Aisling said it was worse than school. But they were told to straighten themselves up and behave nicely and not to make a show of themselves.

The goodbyes were said; Maureen was to write every single week. Eileen had given her eleven stamped envelopes.

 

That would see her up to the Christmas holidays. The two Moriarty girls were saying goodbye too. Donal looked as if he might cry, Eamonn looked as if he couldn’t get out quick enough. Sean ended it with a formal note.

‘It’s always hard to see the first bird leave the nest but it’s the way things are.’

The nuns and everyone else seemed to like this and it got people moving.

‘Yes, this is our first girl to leave the nest,’ said Eileen firmly to the nun who ran the students’ home. And then they were out and getting back into the truck.

Mrs Moriarty was crying and sniffing into her handkerchief. Suddenly Elizabeth leaned over to her.

‘Do you have any relations in Cork, Mrs Moriarty?’ she asked. This was such an odd event that the tears ceased almost at once.

‘No, child … no, why do you ask?’

‘It’s just that… oh, about a year ago when I was coming to live here, I met a Mrs Moriarty on the train, and she was going to her son and daughter-in-law in Cork … and you know I hadn’t heard the name before … and I wondered, since everyone in Ireland seems to be related… .’

Elizabeth stopped. Everyone was looking at her. She had never spoken like that before.

‘You talk like us now,’ said Aisling, laughing.

‘God help us, we’ll have to get that out of you fast before the war is over,’ said Eileen.

Violet got out of bed just as the hall door closed, and George came in from his night’s work. Sleepily, she put on her lilac dressing-gown, brushed her hair and padded down the stairs to put on the kettle.

‘What kind of a night was it?’ she asked him. He looked very drawn and old. He looked fifteen years older than his forty-two years.

‘All right, really,’ he said.

‘George, what does that mean? Does it mean that you were fire watching and there were no fires, or that you put them out?’

‘No, I was shelter attendant,’ he said wearily.

‘But what did you do?’ Violet leaned against the sink. ‘You never tell me what it’s like, what happens.’

‘Well. It’s like when we went to the shelters, you know, and they sort of took charge.’

‘Do you mean just shepherding people in and out… ?’

‘Yes, in a way… .’

‘Like a porter in a station … ?’ Her voice had a high cracked disappointed note about it.

‘It’s much more dangerous,’ he said, hurt.

Suddenly her tense body seemed to soften and she looked at him with real concern. An old, tired man, just finished a night of fear. He could have stayed in their own ‘shelter’, a cellar which had always been considered a nuisance and now was padded with cushions and mattresses. But two nights a week he spent with a torch and a round tin hat guiding people, people with no shelters, up and down stairs, trying to sound authoritative and trying to sound calming.

Tears came to Violet’s eyes and poured down her cheeks. George raised his tired head and half stood up …

‘What is it Violet… what did I say?’ he began.

Her shoulders heaved.

‘I didn’t say anything… .’

‘Oh, the pity of it… the stupid pity … if someone up in the sky were looking down at this pathetic house in this pathetic stupid life, what would they say? You’ve had no sleep, I’ve only had a little sleep. Other people are dead. There’s nowhere to rest, no food to eat, you have to go to that silly stupid bank and I have to go off to this dreary, dull endless factory. Two buses there, two buses back, four sets of queuing … and what’s it all for?’

The kettle whistled behind her and she took no notice.

‘What are we doing it for, George, what on earth is the point? There’s going to be nothing afterwards. It’s going to be just as bad after the war. …”

‘Oh no … after the war… .’

‘Yes, after the war. Tell me, what will be so wonderful?’

‘Elizabeth will be back,’ he said simply.

‘Yes,’ she stopped crying. ‘That will be something.’

 

George got up and turned off the kettle; he made a pot of tea slowly.

Violet wiped her eyes.

‘I must write to Elizabeth today,’ she said. ‘I might do it at my break at work.’

Aisling and Elizabeth were now the senior members of the family. It was even suggested that they might have separate rooms, since Maureen would not be needing hers, except for the holidays. Sean’s room, boxroom or not, would never be offered to them. But the girls didn’t want to change their ways, finding first one excuse and then another. Maureen’s room didn’t get such good light for homework. It was further up the stairs and away from the bathroom. Aisling clinched it, in a fit of kindness, when she said that it would be sad for Maureen if she didn’t think her room would be there to come back to.

Eileen let it go. It would be nice to have a guest room in case they ever had any guests. She had often hoped, over the years, that Violet would come to stay. There had been that visit a long time ago … before Violet had married … it hadn’t been a success. Probably because Sean had been a baby and Violet had been full of the bright young flappers and all the excitement of the twenties in London. Nobody had ever said that it was a failure, but deep down Eileen almost wished that it had never taken place. Now? Well, now, of course, anything would be a treat for Violet and George after the miseries of Britain, the long queues, the black market, the endless waiting at night for the bombs to fall. … In fact she should really write and suggest it. …

Elizabeth was distressed to hear that Eileen had asked Mother to come over to Kilgarret. She wished the invitation had never been sent. She remembered Mother saying the place was dirty sudden

visions of Mother’s nose wrinkled up in horror at some of the habits in the O’Connor household made Elizabeth almost faint. If Mother did come, she wouldn’t fit in and Elizabeth would be running from one side to the other. It would be like old times, when Miss James said one thing and Mother misunderstood, and then Mother would say something and Miss James would be offended. Here in this house, people didn’t brood and wonder what other people had meant, they asked them, and they shouted at them and often they thumped them. Elizabeth’s heart lurched again when she thought how Mother might react when she saw Aunt Eileen slapping things out of Eamonn’s hands if he had picked up some food that he wasn’t meant to have taken. Mother would be appalled at Niamh’s nappies trailing as she toddled round, and at Donal’s stained dressing-gown, which he wore as much around the house as he did in his bedroom. Elizabeth couldn’t even bear to think of what Mother would make of Peggy and whether she would ever bring herself to eat anything that Peggy had touched… .

The prayers that were muttered kneeling in the bathroom — she didn’t want Aisling to know what she was praying for -were answered. Violet wrote to say that it was quite impossible. She did envy everyone in Ireland eating butter and cream and meat. She thought that it sounded like a kind of paradise. There was little gratitude for the invitation, but much on how everyone in Kilgarret was faring better than those in London. Eileen showed the letter to Sean.

‘You can’t say she isn’t making much of us now. She says it sounds like heaven here compared to what they have to endure.’

‘Well, you can write back and tell her that Ireland doesn’t have to endure all that because Ireland didn’t go on like the British Empire, shadow-boxing and fighting other European people instead of minding its own business.’ Eileen had no intention of telling her anything of the sort. She went back to the letter. It sounded more interested in Elizabeth than any of the previous notes and scribbles had been.

I suppose she’s much taller now. They do grow between ten and eleven. A woman beside me at work asked me if I had children, and when I said I had a daughter of eleven she couldn’t believe me. I told her I hadn’t married until I was twenty-eight and she couldn’t believe that either, but she said I didn’t look like anyone who had children. Suddenly, right in the middle of work, I felt very lonely and

 

I started to cry. I’ we been doing a lot of that lately it’s

war nerves, people say. They tell me to take these nerve tonics-everyone takes them — but they’re worse than useless. I think of Elizabeth a lot these nights. I’m glad she’s well and out of reach of the blitz. But sometimes, when I’ve had a long day, I wonder whether there was any point to all we learnt at school. It means nothing now. There’s no point in being able to run a gracious home with nothing to run it on. And all that history. They never told us that wars just went on and on. .

Maureen’s letters arrived every week. Sometimes they had blots on them, and the lines were crooked, but neither Sean nor Eileen seemed to mind a bit, and read them out cheerfully to everyone. Una Moriarty, who was eleven months younger than Norah, was doing very well, but Norah was being homesick and silly. They had been given a late pass and they all went to the pictures in O’Connell Street, but it was the one night when the projector broke down and there was half an hour’s delay, so they’d had to go home without knowing the end of the picture. There was an awful lot of bed-making. The way the beds are made at home is all wrong, they have no corners. Staff Sister Margaret is like a devil but Sister Tutor is very beautiful and glides around, seeming not to walk like other people. They’d all be home on the bus the day before Christmas Eve. Maureen was looking forward to sleeping on and on and on.

Doctor Lynch went on one of his batters the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It had nothing to do with the event, in fact he didn’t even hear of it until five days later when he was discovered by the Guarda in a sailors’ public house in Cork, slumped over a table. This time the return home was less dignified and discreet than on previous occasions. This time, Doctor Lynch was handed unceremoniously to a Guarda van going to Dublin, and then to another on its way to County Wicklow. The family had been told to expect him. The Guarda left him in the square. Their custody of him had been entirely informal; they had abuse from him all the way to Kilgarret. … He was now sobering, but in deadly need of another drink. He ranted that he had their numbers and they would all be demoted for this. Unshaven, without his coat which

had been abandoned somewhere on his joyous journey south to Cork his

eyes narrowed at the sight of the O’Connor house. That was the bloody family which had dared to insult his position by refusing to let their red-haired brat play with Berna. Tears of self-pity came into his eyes. That thick, ignorant Sean O’Connor with his builder’s yard and dirty shop, with his tinker’s brood of children, had dared to forbid Berna his house. Had dared to apologise on his daughter’s behalf for something … which had never been proved, mind you.

Doctor Lynch came slowly up the steps. Peggy let him in and stood back fearfully as he climbed the stairs. Donal, running down to see who was the visitor, met him on the landing between the kitchen and the sitting room.

‘Doctor Lynch.’

‘Yes. Which one of them are you? Which of Sean O’Connor’s brats are you? You’re in your dressing-gown. Are you sick? Have you been sick, boy, come on?’

Flattened against the wall, Donal stared up at him with huge eyes.

‘I’m Donal,’ he said. ‘I’m seven. I’ve a touch of asthma. It’s not bad. I’ll grow out of it.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Everyone says it. Mam says it.’

‘What does your Mam know about it? Does she deign to take you to a doctor at all, or does she have medical skills herself?’

Aisling and Elizabeth heard the shouting and rushed to protect Donal.

‘Well, has she?’ Doctor Lynch was roaring. ‘Go to the shop and get Mam,’ hissed Aisling, and Elizabeth, round-eyed, slipped down the stairs.

‘Who are you?’ The man smelt awful and had stubble all over his face.

‘I’m just visiting,’ said Elizabeth, backing away. She didn’t stop to get her coat, though it was freezing outside.

 

‘Nice to know the O’Connors are still allowed some visitors. Who’s her father, then -a

duke? A doctor’s child isn’t good enough for Sean O’Connor… .’

‘Her father works in a bank in England,’ said Donal helpfully.

Doctor Lynch gazed at him. ‘You’ve more than a touch of asthma, young fella, you have a chest that whistles like a kettle. A great pity your mother never took you to a doctor. I don’t like the sound of it… .’

Aisling’s face blazed. ‘There isn’t a thing wrong with Donal, not a thing. He’s a touch of asthma, that’s all, it gets worse in the bad weather. And Mam has taken him to a doctor, to Doctor MacMahon. And the hospital. And everything. So you’re all wrong. You’re not a proper doctor anyway.’

‘Oh, Aisling.’ Donal looked at her nervously, afraid that she had gone too far. People didn’t say things like that… . Doctor Lynch drew himself up. Aisling’s mind churned, but she saw that she had to go on. If she stopped now, Donal’s faith would go. He would always believe he had a terrible disease if she backed down in front of Berna Lynch’s awful father. Taking a big breath and putting her arm around her brother’s shoulder, she continued.

‘I know what I’m talking about. My father and mother don’t approve of you, Doctor Lynch. They think you’re unreliable. That’s why none of us go to you when we’re sick. We go right out to Doctor MacMahon’s house.’

She didn’t hear her mother bounding lightly up the stairs, summoned by Elizabeth in a few short sentences.

‘Doctor Lynch … Aisling… .’ She saw that Donal was terrified as the two faced each other — the shaggy, unkempt doctor and Aisling, her eyes bright and her red curls bouncing.

‘You’ll answer for this, you impudent little brat,’ he said, moving towards her. Donal, standing in the corner, raised his voice, but only a thin squeak came out.

‘No, she didn’t mean… .’

‘But I did,’ cried Aisling. ‘It’s wrong to come here, to come here all dirty and shabby and start frightening Donal and telling him he’s not well. He’s only got a touch of asthma, do you hear me? Everyone knows it… everyone. …”

Eileen stepped in. It was to Aisling she moved, and she put a hand on a trembling shoulder.

‘Come on, Matthew,’ she said calmly. ‘Go home with you at once. If you want to call on us, come back when you’re in better shape. I can’t imagine why you want to come here bringing yourself down to the level of children. Come on, shoo.’

Her voice brought relief to Donal’s face. She was treating the doctor like a bold child.

‘High and mighty Eileen O’Connor,’ he said venomously, looking round him. ‘Too good for this town … educated in England … what did it get you? A house falling down for want of a coat of paint, a husband covered with dirt over in a yard and a lean-to, a crowd of children one more wild than the next… .’

‘We have the best children in town,’ said Eileen. ‘Are you going now or shall I send one of them over for your wife?’

‘The best,’ he laughed. ‘This one will be in the churchyard before much longer, you sent that Maureen away before she disgraced you, and what about young fellow-me-lad strutting about in a Tommy’s uniform?’

Eileen forced herself to laugh. Once she heard the sound of it it encouraged her and her second attempt was almost a peal.

‘My God, Matthew Lynch, isn’t it true what they say about drunks! They weave more fairy tales and have more imagination than the people who write books. Listen, will you get out of here before my Sean comes back and kicks you out… .’ She wiped her eyes at the amusement of it all. The children looked at her amazed. Even Peggy, who had come to stand at the door with Niamh in her arms, smiled without quite knowing why. The doctor, deflated and unexpectedly defeated, began to leave. Eileen’s laughter annoyed him more than he could believe. He had only said what was true, why was she laughing? The door slammed and Eileen sat down. Her mirth hadn’t subsided. Cautiously the children moved towards her and Peggy advanced into the room.

 

When the door downstairs banged, Eileen leapt up and looked out of the window.

‘Look at him, the poor buffoon, heading for a few quick ones now to give him the courage to face the wife. Oh dear, there’s nothing so desperate as a drunk man whatever

you two girls do, and you too, Peggy, and you Niamh little heart, for God’s sake don’t marry a drunk… .’

Donal felt excluded. ‘Doesn’t he know what he’s saying? Is he really unreliable?’ he asked anxiously.

‘When he’s like that he’s only got old potatoes rattling around in his head, not brains. Poor fool.’ His insults burned into her like a hot rod pushed down the back of her throat. But she was winning, she was managing to make him ridiculous. She didn’t have to deny what he’d said about Donal if she laughed at everything he said. She watched him pick up a newspaper from a bench near the bus stop, and then he shouted something to her. The window was closed so she couldn’t hear.

‘He’s saying something, Mam,’ said Peggy.

‘I’m sure he is,’ she shivered. ‘Come on, Peggy, since I’m home anyway let’s all have a cup of tea.’

‘He keeps pointing to the paper,’ said Donal.

‘Come on away and we’ll close the curtains, it’s dark almost.’ Peggy scuttled out to the kitchen as Eileen opened the window slightly.

‘That’s cooked your goose … America’s in the war now… . Your snot-nosed boy’ll be sent to fight … it’s getting worse, not better… you’ll lose two sons you cackling old hen … your big Tommy of a son’ll be mincemeat in no time now.’

Eileen closed the window quickly and joined the little group by the fire.

‘What’s he saying, Mam?’ Donal, worried still.

‘Oh, more rubbishing and rawmaishing out of him … the man doesn’t know what day it is … he just goes on and on and on… .’

There were, of course, other mothers who didn’t know if their sons lived or died, but Eileen got no comfort from thinking about them. For some reason which she couldn’t quite explain to herself she had pretended to other people that she heard from him. When a well-meaning or even just curious friend or neighbour would ask, ‘Any word at all from Sean in England?’ she would nod brightly and say yes, she heard from him, he was fine. She said it with quick darting looks in the direction her husband might come from … just brief letters, you know, and people thought that the boy wrote to his mother but had fought with his father. In some convoluted way, Eileen thought that this made things more right.

At times she wondered should she write to Violet and enquire about how to trace a missing boy who had gone to sign up. How did you set the machinery in motion to get him back? Show his birth certificate? Prove he was neither British nor eighteen? Then she knew she would never do that; but she was still tempted to hunt him out, just so that she could write to him. She could even get him to write to her at the chemist’s. The Moriartys were unusual in Kilgarret, in that they were able to keep secrets. She had also read somewhere that you could contact missing persons through the Salvation Army, but it made it very final, in a way, if you asked an organisation like that to hunt for him. While you left it, and hoped and hoped, it didn’t seem too bad. It didn’t actually define him as a runaway son, a missing person. Sean was still going to write some time soon… .

She read the paper on her desk and tried to work out from the reports in the Irish Independent whether her son might have been trained by now, or if he were still too young. She went dutifully through accounts of what Stafford Cripps had said, and Churchill had said and Beaverbrook had said and Harold Nicolson had said; but none of them ever said what happened to young Irish boys who went off on boats to join the war. And the paper always referred to it as the Emergency, which seemed less frightening. She followed the progress of events as they moved out to the Far East, and of simpler matters nearer home. She read of the austerity measures, gasping at the idea of onions being so precious they were offered as raffle prizes. She read these things

 

privately and without discussing them with Sean, though she didn’t hide her interest either.

She was utterly unprepared for young Sean’s letter when it did arrive, ten months after he had left home. It was from Liverpool. It was very short. He hadn’t wanted to write at all, he said, or at least not until he was properly in the army and couldn’t be got out of it. But there was this woman, his friend’s mam, she was very nice and she said he should write just a word to his own mam because she’d be grieving. He had said that there were plenty more at home to keep his mam busy, but Gerry’s mam, Mrs Sparks, had said he should still write. So. He was fine and he was meeting a whole lot of very nice people. He had done this and that until September, because they wanted to know what age was he and they wouldn’t take him until he was actually eighteen. He had sent to Ireland for his birth certificate. He got a copy from the Customs House. He was in a camp now doing basic training. It was very interesting. He often spent time off with Gerry Sparks who was his mate and with Gerry’s mam who was very nice and used to cook very well before the war because nowadays you couldn’t get anything.

He sent her no love, no enquiries, no excuses, no pleas for understanding. His writing was bad and his grammar and spelling poor. Eileen thought of the years with the Brothers; she remembered how she and Sean had always thought he was very bright because he was their eldest son; but this was the letter of a near illiterate. She read it again and again, the birth certificate and the Customs House and the basic training, and the tears fell slowly down her cheeks.

She didn’t tell anyone about the letter. She kept it folded in her handbag, and she kept the next one and the next, and the fourth one in November when El Alamein was won. She replied almost lightly, raking her letters before she posted them for any hint of anxiety or grievance. She even found funny little things to tell him, about the day the goat got into the shop and knocked down all the boxes; about Maureen coming home from nursing school and practising bandaging so enthusiastically that she stopped the circulation in Eamonn’s arms for ages and ages; about the play that Aisling, Elizabeth and the little Murray girl wrote and performed, which was meant to be a serious and inspirational account of St Bernadette, and was such high comedy that the audience was convulsed. She sent cheerful greetings to Gerry Sparks’s mother and wished there was some way of sending her a few things; but perhaps some time if Sean came home on leave he might be able to take her back a couple of chickens and some butter and eggs?

The life-line to her son was so gossamer thin she didn’t dare to break it. Even telling someone might put it in danger… .

Sean knew that there were letters, but he never mentioned them. He grew more silent in the shop; he worked just as hard as ever, but he smiled less and had no time for a chat on Fair Day. Sometimes, Eileen would look at him, bending down in the yard and trying to take the strain out of his back, and she would fill with pity for him. Since the Emergency, coal was almost impossible to get, so they had to fill their outhouses with turf instead. Turf took so much room to store; even the rooms over the shop which had been stacked with brooms and potato baskets, boxes of globes and wicks for the lamps, brushes for whitewash and distemper … they were now all full of turf. Eileen felt she was breathing it through her pores as it billowed out of the grate and covered everything with its flakes.

Sean looked older than a man in his forties should look. Perhaps, Eileen thought, he had the worst of all worlds: living in the country but without the countryside’s healthy life; a father of six without a father’s hope and pride in his eldest son taking over the business. He had always been the one with energy and drive; he had saved and hoarded to buy this small place … the year of the treaty. It had all been so symbolic. A new nation, a new business; and there they were, twenty years later and their son out fighting for that same country from which they had won their freedom… . And Sean himself, who had seen this shop as a life’s dream come true, was out in the cold yard, rooting around behind the road signs for some spare plough-shares. It was raining, and his head was getting very wet. Eileen left her little glass cage

 

and, a bag over her head, went out to help him.

She held the huge black and yellow road signs, which had been taken down during the Emergency to confuse any invaders, and made room for him to find the bits of machinery.

‘We’ll do a great tidy-up on this lot, one day,’ he said, gratitude in his tone if not in his words.

‘I know we will,’ she said. She wondered, as she spoke, whether he knew or cared that his son was spending springtime fighting in North Africa. The excitement had been so great when his call-up papers had arrived that even Gerry Sparks had added a few more words to the letter. Gerry was going with him. Eileen still didn’t know whether Sean ever read his son’s letters. She often left her bag open so that he would see them; but he never made any mention of it and they never seemed to have been disturbed when she returned.

Donal had eventually moved to the Brothers’, having been persuaded to spend another year at the convent after he had made his first communion. It wasn’t usual for a boy to stay there until he was eight, but Sister Maureen had managed to convey that it was perfectly reasonable. She had said, privately, that they should give him one more year before he had to face the rough and tumble of the school yard down at the Brothers’. Another year might make his breathing easier, his anxieties less. Eileen, who would have been happy for Donal to be educated for the rest of his life with the kind Sister Maureen, agreed readily. But the day had had to come, and now her delicate child was coming home every day, clothes torn, face terrorised, lips sealed. ‘I fell,’ he said, every day. Eamonn was worn out defending him.

‘You see, Mam,’ Eamonn explained, ‘the fellows pick on Donal because he’s nearly nine, fellows of just eight, and they’re too tough and then I have to go an’ clout them, and then the other fellows come up to me and say what am I doing clouting fellows of only eight for when I’m fourteen. It’s desperate, Mam. That’s why my coat’s torn again.’

Aisling and Elizabeth, cycling home from school — arms touching, dangerously sophisticated thirteen-year-olds, with no time for the bold rough lads from the Brothers’ saw

a crowd gathered around someone lying at the side of the road. Together, they slowed down and curiosity made them get off the bikes to see what had happened. At almost the same moment they recognised Donal’s scarf, a long multi-coloured one that Peggy had knitted from bits of spare wool. Peggy loved wrapping him up in it every morning and would turn him like a top until he was under three layers at least. At exactly the same moment they dropped their bicycles in the middle of the road and ran to him. The other boys were looking frightened.

‘He’s only putting it on,” muttered one.

‘Look at his eyes,’ said another… .

Donal lay on the side of the road gasping for breath, his hands flailing in the air; his scarf lay trailing in the mud, one end of it still caught in the top button of his coat. Aisling was on her knees beside him in a flash. Just as she had seen her mother do a dozen times, she loosened his coat and his shirt collar with a wrench, at the same time raising his head on her arm.

‘Take your time, Donal, you’ve got all the time in the world. As slowly as you like. Don’t fight it,’ she murmured. Elizabeth was on her knees at the other side, helping with the support. Her pale hair was in her eyes, her lisle stockings wet and torn from kneeling on the ground, her upturned bicycle forgotten.

‘Your breath is coming, that’s it, in, out, in, out, that’s it, you’ve got it again… .’

Aisling stood up and faced the seven boys, who were all just as shocked by the sudden swoop the girls had made as by the whites of Donal O’Connor’s eyes.

‘We didn’t do anything,’ said one.

‘No, nothing, we were only playing, we never touched him,’ and there was a gabble of voices all trying to be freed of blame and guilt and involvement.

‘You listen to me,’ Aisling shouted. She glanced over at Elizabeth; they understood each other well enough. Elizabeth started to whisper to Donal. She still had her arm

 

around his shoulder and she bent closer to his cold ear.

Aisling was formidable. ‘I know every one of your names. I know you all. Tonight my Mam and Dad will be down to the school. Brother Kevin will know who you all are and Brother Thomas and Brother John. All of them. They’ll deal with you. You know Donal has asthma. You could have killed him. You could all have been standing down in the courthouse if we hadn’t come along. You could have been young murderers. You hit him, or you knocked him down… .’

‘We only pulled his scarf off him.’

‘Yes, and nearly choked him. The worst thing you could do. Choke him and stop air getting into his chest. You stupid, thick murderer, Johnny Walsh, if Donal isn’t well you’re the

cause.’

‘She’s only letting them think that, she’s only frightening them,’ Elizabeth muttered urgently to Donal. ‘She doesn’t mean it, but just look at them!’

Donal looked. They did indeed look frightened of Aisling.

‘Don’t say anything… .’ Johnny Walsh began in a

whimper.

‘Don’t be such a coward! Don’t be such a murdering coward! I’ll not keep quiet and let you get away with it, murdering a boy with a bad heart and a bad chest!’ Aisling had the taste of power and loved it.

‘You haven’t a bad heart,’ hissed Elizabeth. ‘It’s for show.’ In the darkening evening, under the light drizzle, seven young lads were terrified.

‘He’s older than us, he’s fourteen months older than me… .’ began Eddie Moriarty, white with fear at the thought of what his parents would do to him when this came

out.

‘Yes, and Jemmy in our shop is older than you and Paddy Hickey, the blind man, is older than you and you don’t torment them, you great eejit!’ shouted Aisling.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Johnny Walsh fearfully. Aisling had been thinking.

‘Pick up those bicycles. Now,’ she ordered. ‘Pick them up and wheel them back to town. Johnny and Eddie and you, Michael, come into my Da’s shop and tell him what’s happened. And tell him that from now on you’re going to look after Donal. No need to mention his heart, just tell him that Donal had a fall and that you seven are going to look after him and protect him until his chest gets better.’

It seemed like a glorious escape, but Johnny wanted to make sure he wasn’t walking into a trap.

‘What do we have to tell your father?’

‘That you’re going to see no harm comes to Donal. And you’d all better pray on your knees that Donal’s heart doesn’t give out during the night.’

Magnificent, like the leader of a procession, she marched in front of them back to the town and into the square, while Elizabeth and Donal followed. Donal’s face was wrapped up again in the scarf so no one else would see the giggles, and Elizabeth had one hand over her face. The other was holding Donal’s hand.

It was the only high spot in what was otherwise a very long, very dull term. Aisling thought it would never end. She was as defiant as she dared be, staying just within the limits, and she gave no time at all to her work. She fell behind in her marks and slipped from seventh to eighteenth in class in three weeks. Elizabeth had managed a steady average of tenth or eleventh — which was considered very good for a child who had never studied the basics. There was an element of suspicion that outside an Irish convent very little could have been taught; and that any child who had emerged fairly educated through a non-Irish, non-Catholic system must be a very diligent child indeed. She now joined in the religious knowledge classes; it had seemed silly to sit in the library reading a big Bible full of words she didn’t understand, when she could hear marvellous stories of apparitions and angels and sins and Jesus being so good to his mother… .

There had been some more worrying conversations about Elizabeth’s conversion. Some of the class wondered whether they should arrange for her first communion, so that she should have the chance to confess all her sins and get forgiveness at confession.

‘I don’t have all that many sins,’ Elizabeth had said

 

innocently once, and everyone was horrified. She was riddled with sin, they all were, but Elizabeth was particularly bad because of all that original sin, as well.

‘But I thought that the original sin had been washed away after all the baptisms?’ Elizabeth had now been baptised four times. There had been doubt about the validity of the first one on the cloakroom floor. There had been an accusation that the water might not have flowed at exactly the same time as the words were being said. Then there was a long and bitter debate about whether the words should be said in Latin or English; one school of thought was convinced that lay baptisms were conducted in the vernacular… .

For no reason that was ever voiced, Elizabeth’s conversion had never been made public. There was an unspoken feeling that, for all the nuns were exhorting them to go and convert all races and spend their pocket money contributing to the conversion of little black babies, there might be a different attitude taken to doing the job on Elizabeth. It was also feared that if Elizabeth’s parents in England were to hear about it there might be great trouble.

Her mother’s letters seemed to come from another world, not just another country. Elizabeth was pleased that she wrote more often and that her letters did not consist of a list of instructions: be sure to take your medicine, wear your gloves, thank everyone. … As the war went on, Mother seemed to have cheered up, despite the complaints. There was no soap the

ration was three ounces every month: fancy trying to live a normal healthy life on three ounces of soap a month. There was no white bread Mother

had forgotten what it tasted like. She had friends in the munitions factory where she worked and very often she stayed overnight with Lily because it was such a long journey home and somehow in this depressing war, it was nice to have a friend to laugh with. Mother had changed her hair-style, she had a victory roll now; it looked funny at first but people said it suited her. Once or twice she said that she missed Elizabeth. She always ended her letters saying she hoped Elizabeth was well and happy and that it wouldn’t be long now until she could come home and they could all lead a nice normal life again.

Mother said very little about Father in her letters. And when she sent a pound for her birthday present, just before she was fourteen, Elizabeth realised with horror that she hadn’t mentioned Father for months.

Eileen was at her desk when Elizabeth came to talk to her.

‘Are you busy?’ she asked.

Eileen smiled. None of her own family would dream of asking such a question; they all assumed that she was always ready and willing to listen, to help, to act.

‘I’m not busy,’ she said, pulling up a chair. On her desk she had a shoe box filled with the shop accounts, the bills overdue that had to be sent out with a personal note. No firm reminders on a printed form could be sent to a farmer who might take offence and buy from the next town. She had a letter she now knew by heart from Mrs Sparks in Liverpool, an awkward, stunted little letter from a lonely widow whose son was away and who felt she had an ally in Sean’s mother. She wrote of her loneliness and her hopes that they’d be back soon, and how she hadn’t heard anything for six weeks and how she wondered whether Mrs O’Connor might have. She had a letter to a specialist in Dublin, and she had to plan which day to take Donal. She had a note from Sister Margaret saying that it was time they had young Niamh at school as she was nearly five now and could they bring her down towards the end of term so that it wouldn’t be so strange to her when she started in September. And, Sister Margaret said, wasn’t it the blessings of God how well young Donal had settled in at the Brothers’? She had heard from all sides how the roughest young hooligans were all a great support to him instead of picking on him. The Lord worked in mysterious ways. There was a letter from Maureen wondering would Da ever let her have three pounds for a gorgeous dance dress and she’d pay him back out of her allowance, when they started to get an allowance in summer. She had a letter from the County Home that said that Sean’s father was sinking fast and was very anxious to see them. They mustn’t be put off by the fact that he might not recognise them; he kept saying that he wanted to see his son and his family.

‘No, I’m not busy, child,’ said Eileen.

 

‘It’s just that, I don’t know how to say it, but, you know, there wouldn’t be any danger, could there, that my father is dead?’

‘Dead? Oh, God forbid it should be true — what makes you say that, child? Where did you get such an idea?’

Elizabeth produced a large envelope with a little sticker on it saying ‘Mother’s letters’. There were over fifty letters, each with the date they had arrived. She laid them out, picking up one from August 1943.

‘This is the last time Mother said anything about Father. She says he was upset because of women striking for equal pay with men, that they shouldn’t do that when there’s a war on. And then not ever again. Not even at Christmas. She doesn’t say Father sends his love. She doesn’t say anything about his ARP work… .’ Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Do you think something’s happened and she’s protecting me?’

Eileen rocked her in her arms, the soothing words and the denials, the positive statements tumbling out. Of course he was fine, of course they’d have heard, of course they would, it was that things had changed so much in England, and since Mother was going out to work she now had a much broader life and she didn’t just write about home. And men were hopeless at writing letters, sure just look at Uncle Sean now, he was most concerned to know how Maureen was getting on up in Dublin, but did he ever put pen to paper to write to her? Never. And then people don’t always keep mentioning the same things, after all when Eileen wrote to Sean she often made no mention of his father… .

It had slipped out.

‘Do you write to Sean? Oh, I didn’t know. Where is he?’

‘He’s in Africa, he’s grand, he’s got a lovely English friend called Gerry Sparks. He often asks after you in his letters … now to go back to you and your worries. We’ll go and ring up home for you on your birthday. We’ll go into the shop tomorrow night and make a three-minute call. We’ll even book it tonight. And you can tell them that it’s their big, fourteen-year-old girl talking. How about that?’

‘Will it be very expensive?’ Elizabeth wondered.

‘Not at all, and isn’t it a birthday:

‘Thank you very much,’ said Elizabeth, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand and her nose on a sleeve.

‘Oh, Elizabeth, there’s just one thing… .’

‘I know, Auntie Eileen, they’re your business, the letters to Sean. I know.’

The next letter that came said that Sean and Gerry had left North Africa. They had been in the Anzio landings and now were well into Italy. Sean wrote that the Italian countryside was beautiful and bits of it would remind you of County Wicklow. There was even less life in his words and he wished for the fighting to end. He was glad that everything was well at home. Gerry’s mum had written about how you wouldn’t recognise Liverpool after all the raids. It was strange to think that nothing had happened in Ireland. He wrote that they might well see Rome. When he thought of all he had learned about the Holy City at the Brothers’ and now he was going to see it! He was telling Gerry about it but Gerry hadn’t heard of anything and didn’t know about the Vatican and St Peter’s. He’d write a letter from Rome, a proper letter and Mam could take it down to Brother John and show him that a boy didn’t need a Leaving Certificate to get to the Holy City.

But Sean and Gerry didn’t get to the Holy City with the rest of the allies. A minefield in the Italian countryside that looked a bit like County Wicklow took both legs off Gerry Sparks from Liverpool, aged twenty-one; and twenty yards away killed outright his friend Sean O’Connor from Kilgarret who still had four months to go before he was twenty-one.

Private S. O’Connor had listed his address as the small terraced house in Liverpool where Amy Sparks received the news. She sat in her dark kitchen and thought of her only son. She read the telegram over and over again, thinking that she should react more. Then she prepared herself to tell the mother of Gerry’s mate that Sean O’Connor would not be coming back to Kilgarret.

The call came through to the shop, and Eileen took it in her little eyrie. She listened without tears as Mrs Sparks explained. She waited calmly until the sobbing of the woman

 

she had never met ceased. She sympathised in a low voice over Gerry, she said she was glad to hear that he would recover. She agreed that it was a blessing that Sean had been killed outright, but that it was great that Mrs Sparks would be able to look after Gerry.

‘You sound such a wonderful woman,’ Amy Sparks sobbed. ‘Sean always did say “My Mam is grand”. That’s what he called you, grand.’

‘He didn’t mean it in the English sense, like a grand lady,’ said Eileen. ‘I was at school in England, I remember it was used differently.’

‘Perhaps, if you ever came over to see your old school, perhaps you could come and stay with me. Perhaps you could come and see Gerry when they bring him back… .’ The longing in her voice was clear. ‘There’d be no restrictions on you travelling.’

Eileen didn’t even pause.

‘I’ll come very soon. If Gerry is coming back the week after next I’ll come too.’ She heard Amy Sparks gasp down the telephone. ‘If there had been a funeral for Sean I’d have come.’

For some reason that she couldn’t explain to herself afterwards, Eileen didn’t tell anyone for four days. In that time she went mechanically around her daily jobs, doing them with almost superhuman energy. It was as if she had made up a game with rules: she mustn’t cry. If she let herself go and cried it would be worse for Sean. She had to be strong. Otherwise his whole life had no meaning, going out to that terrible place and being blown up. It would just be meaningless if people at home just wept great tears for him.

She was very methodical. She left Peggy a great list of things to do; she arranged for Eamonn to work in the shop. She extracted a promise from Donal that he would rest and keep warm. She arranged for Maureen to come to Dunlaoghaire and meet her in a hotel.

Then she told them why she was going to be away.

She told Sean on a sunny June evening. She sat on an upturned drum and told him that their son was dead. She told him of Gerry and how his legs were gone and of the telephone call from his mother. She talked about the countryside in Italy and how they had been on the way to Rome. The noises of the shop came up from time to time as Sean tried to take it in.

They never touched each other or held each other as she spoke of the telegram that had come to the house-in Liverpool, and of the details that would follow later about the grave. She spoke the way Amy Sparks had done, in slightly halting sentences about how it had been very quick, and Sean must have known nothing.

Then she listened. She listened while he ranted, she listened, still sitting on the upturned drum, while he sobbed. She couldn’t hear what he said into his big blue handkerchief. She waited while the sobbing ended and was replaced by sighs.

‘Would you like me to come to Liverpool with you? It’s a kind of pilgrimage, isn’t it? A sort of funeral?’

She looked at him gratefully. He had understood, after all.

‘No, he’d prefer you to be here.’

And then she called the children together and told them their brother was dead. She made the telling full of words like ‘peaceful’ and ‘heaven’ and ‘what he wanted to do’. She used words like ‘brave’ and ‘strong’ and ‘proud’ … then she said that they could help her and help Sean by being very strong.

The tears were coursing down Elizabeth’s face and Aisling’s was working in disbelief. He couldn’t be… . How did you… . It’s not fair… . Maybe… . What if. … Then she ran out of words and cried on Elizabeth’s shoulder and Elizabeth patted her head and said that they must be brave. Eamonn rushed back to the shop, his big innocent face stained and red. Donal protested that Sean couldn’t be happy in heaven, he hadn’t intended to go there, it was the bloody Germans and Italians that sent him there. He had never said the word bloody before.

And Eileen told Maureen in the chilly lounge of a Dunlaoghaire hotel, where Maureen cried like a baby and rocked backwards and forwards in Eileen’s arms until the manageress came and asked would they like to go somewhere more private. So they walked up and down the pier for two

 

hours while Maureen cried while she thought of all the things that Sean would never do.

Then the pilgrimage began.

It passed in a blur; the rubble in the streets of Liverpool, the blackout, the queues outside every shop. There was the visit to the hospital, where Gerry had cried. She had been very strong and she had smiled. Then she had asked a young priest with an Irish accent to say a mass for Sean. It was at seven in the morning and Amy Sparks had been there. Eileen had worn her black hat and gloves and carried a bunch of flowers which she was going to leave in the church. It was as near as she could manage to a wreath.

But she cried as she sat on the boat back to Ireland and the tears ran down her face while she made no attempt to wipe them away. Her coat was stained with them as she sat looking out to the dark sea and crying at the waste. She stood up, the tears still falling and her shoulders heaving and walked to the rail of the ship. As she held onto the bar, her hat was whipped away by the night wind. It flew up in the air, hit the deck and was borne off. But the other passengers saw that the handsome woman in the black coat didn’t even seem to notice it had gone. She was saying something over and over again. Praying, possibly.