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Contents

Cover

About the Book

About the Author

Also by Maeve Binchy

Title Page

Dedication

Part One: 1940–1945

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Part Two: 1945–1954

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Part Three: 1954–1956

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Part Four: 1956–1960

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

About the Book

Evacuated from Blitz-battered London, shy and genteel Elizabeth White is sent to stay with the boisterous O’Connors in Kilgarret, Ireland. It is the beginning of an unshakeable bond between Elizabeth and Aisling O’Connor, a friendship which will endure through twenty turbulent years of change and chaos, joy and sorrow, soaring dreams and searing betrayals …

Writing with warmth, wit and great compassion, Maeve Binchy tells a magnificent story of the lives and loves of two women, bound together in a friendship that nothing can tear asunder – not even the man who threatens to come between them for ever.

About the Author

Maeve Binchy was born in Dublin, and went to school at the Holy Child Convent in Killiney. She took a history degree at UCD and taught in various girls’ schools, writing travel articles in the long summer holidays. In 1969 she joined the Irish Times and for many years she was based in London writing humorous columns from all over the world. She is the author of five collections of short stories as well as twelve novels including Circle of Friends, The Copper Beech, Tara Road, Evening Class and The Glass Lake. Maeve Binchy died in July 2012 and is survived by her husband, the writer Gordon Snell.

Also by Maeve Binchy

Fiction

Echoes

Victoria Line, Central Line

Dublin 4

The Lilac Bus

Firefly Summer

Silver Wedding

Circle of Friends

The Copper Beech

The Glass Lake

Evening Class

Tara Road

Scarlet Feather

Quentins

Nights of Rain and Stars

Non-fiction

Aches & Pains

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9781409049203

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published in the United Kingdom by Arrow Books in 2006

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Maeve Binchy has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

First published in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Century

Arrow Books
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099498575

For dearest Gordon with all my love

PART ONE

1940–1945

VIOLET FINISHED THE library book and closed it with a snap. Yet again, a self-doubting, fluttery, bird-brain heroine had been swept away by a masterful man. He would silence her protests with kisses, the urgency of his passion would express itself in all sorts of positive ways. … He would organise the elopement or the wedding plans or the emigration to his South American estates. The heroine would never have to make all the arrangements herself, standing in queues at the travel agency, the ticket office, the passport office. Violet had to do everything herself. She had come back from an endless morning of standing in shops to beat the shortages. Other women seemed to enjoy it, to think of it as a game of hunt-the-thimble. ‘I’ll tell you where there’s bread if you tell me how you got those carrots.’

Violet had been to the school and had a highly unsatisfactory discussion with Miss James. Miss James was not going to organise any evacuation for her class. All the parents so far had friends or relations in the country. There was no question of the whole class decamping and continuing their education in some rural setting with safety from bombs and plenty of good country food. Miss James had said quite tartly that she was certain Mr and Mrs White must have friends outside London. Violet wondered suddenly whether they had friends anywhere, city or country. She felt very dissatisfied with Miss James for forcing her to face this possibility. George did have some cousins in Somerset, near Wells. But they had lost touch. Oh yes, she’d read all the heart-warming stories of long-lost families having been brought together over the evacuation of children … but somehow she didn’t think it would happen to George. Violet had no relations to speak of. Her father and his second wife were in Liverpool, separated from her by a feud too long-lasting to dream of mending. To heal would be to open the wound, examine it and forgive. It was so long ago it was almost forgotten. Let it stay that way.

Elizabeth was so timid, so unsure of herself, she would not be an easy evacuee. She had inherited her father’s awkwardness, Violet thought regretfully. She seemed to expect the worst from every situation. Well, perhaps it was better than having expected great things and having got so little. Violet suspected that Elizabeth and George might be the lucky ones; to expect defeat and conflict and being relegated to second best meant freedom from shock when it happened.

It was no use whatsoever discussing it with George. These days George had only one thing he could discuss – the kind of country which would accept a man for military service who hadn’t a brain in his head, and refuse a man like George who could have been of some real assistance in the war. … It had been bad enough to see all those younger, brainless men do well in the bank, move into different aspects, get preferment, buy motor cars, even – that had been galling. But now, when their land was threatened and their nation was in danger, George had been told that some services were essential to the country and that banking was one of them.

They had found no terminal disease at his medical examination, just a series of inadequacies. He had flat feet, he had a whistling chest, he had sinus trouble, he had varicose veins, he was slightly deaf in one ear. His offer to lay down his life for his country had been met with a series of insults.

From time to time, Violet felt an old, familiar surge of affection for him, a sharing in his outrage, but mainly she felt he brought a lot of it on himself. Not his deafness, not his veins, but his rejection and his disappointment. He went out half-way to invite it.

So the problem of what they were to do with Elizabeth would, of course, be Violet’s and Violet’s alone. As were so many of the problems.

Violet stood up and examined her face in the mirror. It was a perfectly acceptable face. It had nice colouring, according to what the magazines advised; and her hair was blonde, naturally blonde. Her figure had always been good. Even before the drawing in of belts that had become associated with patriotism and this dreadful war, Violet used to watch what she ate. Why, then, did her face have no sparkle? It wasn’t a lively face. It looked flat somehow.

Of course it looked flat, Violet thought with a surge of resentment. Anyone’s face would look flat had they been dealt such a poor hand in everything. The chap that had said her eyes were violet like her name had turned out to be a confidence trickster, and had swindled everyone in the neighbourhood. The fellow who had said she should sing professionally had only meant her to sing to him in the bath while he poured her sparkling wine. The eager young banker who told her that together they would rise in London society so that everyone would know her name and envy her distinguished husband his luck, was at this moment with his flat feet and varicose veins, picking his teeth and making excuses down at the local branch of the bank where he would stay forever.

It had all been so different, so dull. It had all been so unfair and so flat. No wonder her features had blended into the background.

She looked at the cover of the library book. Under the transparent library binding a masterful man leaned on an old gnarled apple tree with his riding crop in his hand. Violet wondered whether people should be prosecuted for writing novels like that.

Elizabeth came home from school slowly. Miss James had said that Mother had been in to discuss things. She had said not to look so anxious, there was nothing to worry about. Elizabeth had looked doubtful. No, really, Miss James had assured her, Elizabeth’s Mummy had only come in to discuss what would happen when the children all went off to the country to stay in quiet places by the seaside or on farms. Elizabeth wasn’t fooled by Miss James’s way of describing what lay ahead. She knew it was something dreadful, something spoken of with dread by parents … as if it were torture. They tried to make light of it, but it was no use.

Elizabeth had thought it was ‘vaccination’ when she had heard of it first. It was another long word with dangerous associations. Father had laughed and put his arms around her, and Mother had smiled too. No, they assured her, evacuation was being sent to the country in case bombs fell and hurt children. But why couldn’t parents come to the country too, Elizabeth had wanted to know. Father had said he had to work in the bank, and Mother had sniffed; and suddenly the nice smiling bit, the short happy bit when she had mixed up the words was gone. Father said Mother could go to the country, as she had no job. Mother had replied that if she had a job she wouldn’t have remained on the bottom rung of it for fifteen years.

Elizabeth had run off pretending that she had to do her homework, but she just took out an old doll and unpicked it, stitch by stitch, while she cried and wondered what she could do to make them smile more, and what she had done that made them so angry all the time.

Today she had another fear in her heart. She wondered if Mother had fought with Miss James about something. Mother had thought Miss James was silly before, when she had taught them to sing nursery rhymes in harmony. ‘Big girls, ten years old, singing silly nursery rhymes,’ Mother had said, and Miss James had answered her pleasantly. But a lot of the fun went out of it after that. …

Elizabeth found it hard to know when Mother would be happy. Sometimes she was happy for days on end, like the time they had gone to the music hall, and Mother had met an old friend and he had said that Mother used to sing better than anyone on the stage in London. Father had been a bit put out, but what with Mother being so cheerful, and even suggesting they all have a fish supper, he cheered up. Mother didn’t usually suggest anything so common as a fish supper. When they had fish at home, it was little bits of fish, with lots of bones and funny knives that weren’t really knives to eat it with. Mother loved those knives. They had been a wedding present and she warned everyone not to let their handles go into the water when the washing-up was being done. Elizabeth didn’t like the fish that Mother cooked, with the bones and little bits of egg and parsley on it, but she was glad to see it because the knives always made Mother so good-humoured.

And sometimes when she came home from school, Mother would be singing: that was always a very good omen indeed. Other times, Mother would come and sit on Elizabeth’s bed and stroke her fine, fair hair and tell her about her childhood and how she had read books about men who did brave deeds for beautiful women. Sometimes she told Elizabeth funny stories about the nuns in the extraordinary convent school where everyone had been Roman Catholics and believed the most amazing things, but Mother had been allowed to go for walks during the religious instruction classes because it had all been quite so amazing.

The terrible thing was that you never knew when Mother would be happy or when she would not.

Today she was writing a letter, which was unusual. Elizabeth thought that it was a complaint letter, and she prayed that it wasn’t about Miss James. She approached nervously.

‘Are you busy, Mother?’ she asked.

‘Mm,’ said Mother.

She stood there, a thin little ten-year-old; her short, fair hair – almost white it was so fair – was pulled back from her face with an Alice band, but when she was fussed – like now – little wisps of it escaped, standing up like spikes. Her face was red and white at the same time; the parts around her eyes and nose ashen, while the crimson high up on her cheeks moved like a red shadow.

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘I’m going to send you to Eileen.’

Eileen was a name on a Christmas card, it was a name associated with a small, cheap toy on her birthday. Last year, Mother had said she wished Eileen would drop the birthday gifts, it was silly to keep it up and she couldn’t possibly be expected to remember all the birthdays of Eileen’s dozens of children.

‘It seems the only possible solution.’

Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. She wished she knew what she could do to be allowed to stay. She wished hard that she could be the kind of girl that parents didn’t send away, or that they’d come with her.

‘Will you come with me?’ She looked at the carpet hard.

‘Oh, heavens, no dear.’

‘I was just hoping. …’

‘Elizabeth, don’t be so silly. I can’t possibly go to Eileen’s, to the O’Connors, with you. … Darling, they live in Ireland. Who would go to Ireland, Elizabeth, for heaven’s sake? It’s out of the question.’

Thursday was always a busy day because the farmers coming in for the market brought their lists into the shop. Sean employed a boy, Jemmy, who wasn’t ‘all there’, to help carry out the supplies from the yard. He didn’t want the children cluttering up the shop on a Thursday, he had said so a dozen times. He wiped a weary forehead with a dusty hand in annoyance when he saw Aisling and Eamonn escaping from the ineffectual grabs and shouts of Peggy and running into the shop.

‘Where’s Mammy, Da, where’s Mammy?’ shouted Aisling.

‘Where’s Mammy, where’s Mammy?’ repeated Eamonn.

Peggy, running and giggling, was just as bad.

‘Will ya come here, you brats,’ she laughed. ‘I’ll tan the backside offa you, Aisling, when I catch you. Your father’s after saying a hundred times, he’ll have yez locked up if you come in here on a Thursday.’

The farmers, busy men who hated having to take any time at all away from their deals and discussions on beasts, laughed at the sideshow. Peggy, hair escaping from a bun, filthy apron stained with the last twenty meals she had served, was loving the sensation she knew she was causing. Sean looked at her helplessly as she darted here and there, making even more of a game of it than the children were, with her bold winks at the farmers and the come-on glance giving encouragement to any of them that might want to come back and find her at the end of the market when the pubs were making them feel like powerful men. Johnny stood open-mouthed and delighted, with the planks in his hands that should have been loaded on a trailer.

‘Get those bloody bits of wood outside and come back in here,’ roared Sean. ‘Now, Michael, ignore these antics, I’ll deal with that lot later. How much are you going to need for the plastering? Are you doing all the outhouses now? No, no, of course you’re not. Far too much to take on at one time.’

Eileen had heard the commotion, and in small quick steps she came out of her little office and down to the shop. Her office, with its mahogany surrounds and glass windows on all sides, looked like a little closed-in pulpit, Young Sean had said to her once. She should really preach a sermon to everyone in the shop, rather than fill in books and ledgers. But if Eileen didn’t fill books and ledgers, there would be no shop, no house, no luxuries like Peggy, and Jemmy, who got a few shillings on a Thursday which made him important again in his family.

Her face was set in a hard line when she met the excited children and the flushed Peggy. Taking each child in a most uncomfortable place, just under the shoulder, she marched them firmly out of the shop; and after one glance from the Mistress, Peggy lost a lot of her bounce and followed quickly with her eyes down. Sean sighed with relief and got back to what he knew about.

Up the stairs of the house in the square, the children squealing and wriggling, Eileen was unwavering.

‘Put on some tea, please, Peggy,’ she said, her voice cold.

‘But Mammy, we just wanted to show you the letter.’

‘With the picture of a man on it.’

‘It came by the afternoon post. …’

‘And Johnny said when he was giving it that it was from England. …’

‘And the man was the King of England. …’

Eileen ignored them. She put them sitting on two dining chairs opposite her and faced them.

‘If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, on Thursday, on market day, your father doesn’t want to see hide nor hair of you in that shop and neither do I. As it is, he’s over there waiting on me to come back and do the bills, and write up the books for the farmers. Have you no idea at all of obedience? Aisling, a great, big girl of ten years of age? Do you hear me?’

Aisling hadn’t heard a word. She wanted her mother to open the letter, which she vaguely thought was from the King of England because of what the postman had said.

‘Aisling, listen to me!’ shouted Eileen, and seeing that she was getting nowhere, she reached out and slapped the bare legs of the two of them. Hard. Both began to cry. At the sound, Niamh woke up and began to cry in the cot in the corner of the living room.

‘I only wanted to give you the letter,’ wailed Aisling. ‘I hate you, I hate you.’

‘I hate you too,’ echoed Eamonn.

Eileen marched to the door. ‘Well, you can sit here and hate me.’ She tried not to raise her voice since she knew that little Donal would be sitting up in bed, listening to every sound. Just thinking of his little face made her heart move suddenly, so she decided to run upstairs and see him just for a few seconds. If she went in and said something cheerful he would smile and go back to his book. Otherwise she might see his face pressed anxiously to the bedroom window as he watched her crossing from the house to the shop. She peeped in at his door, knowing well that he was awake.

‘You’re to try and sleep, pet, you know that.’

‘Why is there shouting?’ he asked.

‘Because that bold sister and brother of yours came into the shop caterwauling on a Thursday, that’s why,’ she said, adjusting the bedclothes.

‘Have they said sorry?’ he asked, begging to be reassured.

‘No, they haven’t – yet,’ said Eileen.

‘What’s going to happen now?’

‘Nothing too bad,’ she said, and kissed him.

Back in the living room, Aisling and Eamonn were still mutinous.

‘Peggy called us for tea, but we’re not going,’ said Aisling.

‘As you wish. You can certainly have my permission to sit here for as long as you like. In fact you can sit here for a long time. Because neither of you two will get to have a lemonade this Thursday evening after your behaviour.’

The faces were round-eyed with disbelief and disappointment. Always on a Thursday, with his order-book full and his cash-box bursting, Sean O’Connor took his wife and children down to Maher’s. It was a quiet place. There would be no farmers with manure on their boots sealing bargains in there. Maher’s was the drapery as well as having a pub and Eileen liked looking at the new jackets or boxes of cardigans with Mrs Maher. Young Sean and Maureen liked sitting up on high stools reading the notices behind the bar and looking like grown-ups; Aisling and Eamonn loved the way the fizzy red lemonade went up their noses, and how Mr Maher would give them a biscuit with icing on it, and their father would say they were spoiled. The Mahers had a cat which had just had kittens. Last Thursday the kittens’ eyes hadn’t been open, so this week, for the first time, they would be allowed to play with them.

And now it was all cancelled.

‘Please, Mammy, please, I’ll be good, I’ll be very good …’

‘I thought you hated me?’

‘I don’t really hate you,’ said Eamonn hopefully.

‘I mean, nobody could hate their mother?’ added Aisling.

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Eileen. ‘That’s why I was so surprised you both forgot that, the way you forgot about coming to the shop. …’ She gave in. It was the only time in the week when Sean relaxed properly, that hour in Maher’s with the children nicely scrubbed and neat playing peacefully with cats or rabbits or caged birds. She picked up the letter and went into the kitchen.

‘I’ve the tea wet, Mam,’ said Peggy nervously.

‘Pour me the large mug, please. Keep those children in the living room and see to the baby.’ In a moment, she had her tea and, letter in her pocket, was striding back to the shop. It was an hour before she had time to open the letter.

In Maher’s that night, Eileen passed it to Sean to read.

‘My eyes are so tired I can hardly see it,’ he said. ‘Anyway, that writing’s like a spider half-drunk getting out of an inkpot.’

‘That’s italic script, you ignoramus, that’s the way the nuns in St Mark’s taught us to write. Violet remembers it, I don’t, that’s all.’

‘That Violet has little else to remember,’ said Sean. ‘Life of ease over there, she has.’

‘Not since the war started,’ Eileen pointed out.

‘No,’ Sean agreed into his pint. ‘No. Is her man out in the trenches? I suppose he’d be an officer, being in the bank and all. That’s the way the British Empire does things. If men have good accents they get good jobs and they get to be officers.’

‘No, George isn’t in the army at all, he had something wrong. I don’t know what, anyway he was medically unfit.’

‘Too cushy a life in the bank, I suppose he didn’t want to leave,’ said Sean.

‘Sean, it’s the child, it’s Violet’s child, Elizabeth. They’re all being sent out of London for fear of the bombs … you know, we read it in the papers. Violet wants to know will we have her here?’

‘This isn’t the country … they’re not evacuating them to Ireland, this is our country. They can’t make us join their bloody war by sending us all their children and old people … haven’t they done bloody enough already …?’

‘Sean, will you listen to me!’ Eileen snapped. ‘Violet would like to know whether we would take Elizabeth for a few months. The little school she’s in is closing down because all the children are being evacuated. George has relations, and so has Violet, but they … they asked if she could come here. What do you think?’

‘I think it’s a bloody liberty, a bloody cheek and typical of the British Empire. Unless you can be of some use to them they’ve no time for you, they don’t want to know you, not a letter, barely a Christmas card. Then when they get themselves into this stupid war they’re fawning all over you. That’s what I think.’

‘Violet is not the British Empire, she’s my friend from school. She was never a letter-writer, even this one is jerky and full of … I don’t know, brackets and inverted commas. She’s not used to writing to people, not twenty or thirty letters a day, like I am. That’s not the point. The point is will you have the child in the house?’

‘That’s not the point, the point is she’s got a bloody neck to ask.’

‘Shall I say no, then? Will I write tonight and say I’m sorry, no. Reason? Because Sean says the British Empire has a bloody neck. Will that do?’

‘Don’t be all bitter. …’

‘I’m not being all bitter. I’ve had just as exhausting a day as you have. All right. Of course I think Violet has a bloody neck. Of course I’m insulted when I think she hasn’t much time for me, if she doesn’t bother to write unless she wants something. That goes without saying. The point is, do we have the child or not? She’s Aisling’s age, she didn’t declare war on Germany, or invade Ireland, or attack De Valera or whatever. … She’s only ten, she’s probably lying there at night wondering will a bomb fall on her and blow her to bits. Now, do we have her or don’t we?’

Sean looked surprised. Eileen didn’t usually make speeches. And it was even more unusual for her to admit to a hurt or an insult from her precious friend of schooldays.

‘Will she be too much trouble for you?’ he asked.

‘No, she might even be a friend for Aisling. And what can one child eat more than we all eat already?’

Sean called for another pint, a port for Eileen and more lemonades. He looked at Eileen, smart now in her white blouse with the brooch at the neck, her brown-red hair pulled up at the sides with combs. She was a handsome woman, he thought, and a strong partner in everything he did. Few people, seeing her in her navy office coat, working out the credit and the cash for a growing business, would know what she was like underneath. A passionate wife – he had always been amazed that she should respond to him as eagerly as he turned to her – and a loving mother too. He looked at her warmly. She had such a heart it could include more children than she had herself.

‘Send for her, it’s the least we can do to try and keep a child away from all the madness that’s going on,’ he announced. And Eileen patted him on the arm in a rare display of public affection.

The letter from Eileen arrived so quickly that Violet believed it was a refusal. In her experience, people who were about to make excuses and justify their actions always wrote quickly and at length. With a heavy sigh she picked it up from the mat.

‘Well I expect we’ll have to smoke out your father’s relations after all,’ she sighed as she brought it back to the breakfast table.

‘Does this mean she says no …?’ began Elizabeth. ‘Maybe she says yes inside. …’

‘Don’t speak with your mouth full. Pick up your serviette and try to behave properly, Elizabeth, please,’ said Violet mechanically as she slit the envelope with a paper knife. George had already gone to work and there were just the two of them. Violet thought that if you let standards fall you were on the way to destruction, so the toast was served with the crusts cut off in a small china toast rack, and all three of them had their napkin rings into which the folded napkin must be replaced after every meal.

Elizabeth nearly burst waiting for Violet to read the news. It couldn’t have been more irritating. She would read bits aloud and then mutter.

‘My dear Violet … delighted to hear from you … emm … umm … very concerned about you and George and Elizabeth … emm … umm … many people here think that we should be in the war too … do anything we can … children very pleased and excited. …’

Elizabeth knew she had to wait. She screwed her table napkin very tightly into a little ball. She didn’t know what she wanted to hear: it would be a relief not to have to go across the sea to another country, a place that Father seemed to think was just as dangerous as London and a place that Mother dismissed as somewhere you couldn’t go except in dire circumstances. She didn’t want to go and stay in an awful dump with dozens of children, and in a town full of animal droppings and drunkards which was how Mother had remembered Kilgarret. Elizabeth didn’t want to be in a dirty place somewhere that Mother disapproved of. But still, Mother had said this was the best place for her to go. Perhaps it had got better. It had been years since Mother had visited it, long before she had married Father. She had said she would never go back again – she couldn’t understand how Eileen had been able to stand it.

But it was this place with all its dangers and dirt, or else it was more trouble and anxiety and looking for Father’s cousins.

After a long time, and two pages, Violet spoke.

‘They’re going to take you.’

Elizabeth’s face went its bright red and white colour. Violet was irritated; she hated it when Elizabeth flushed in this vivid way over nothing at all.

‘When am I to go?’

‘Whenever we like. It will take time, of course. We have to pack, and I have to write to Eileen about school books … what you need. She’s full of welcomes but little practical advice about what to take with you and what you’ll need. Oh, and there’s this note for you. …’

Elizabeth took the single sheet of paper. It was the first letter she had ever got from anyone. She read it slowly to savour it.

Dear Elizabeth,

We are all so glad that your Mummy is lending you to us for a little while, and we hope you’ll be happy here. Kilgarret is very different from London but everyone is looking forward to meeting you and making you feel at home. You will share a room with Aisling, who is exactly the same age as you, there is only one week in the difference so we hope you’ll be great friends. Sister Mary at the school says you’ll probably know far more than all the class put together. Bring any toys or dolls or books you want, we’ve plenty of room here, and we’re counting the days till you come.

Auntie Eileen

At the bottom of the page in a section where someone had ruled lines to keep the writing straight, there was another note.

Dear Elizabeth,

I have left all the shelves on the left side of the room for you and half the press and half the dressing table. Be sure to come for Eamonn’s birthday, there will be a party. The Mahers’s kittens are sweet they have their eyes open. Mammy is going to get one for you and me to share.
Love, Aisling.

‘A kitten to share,’ said Elizabeth, her eyes shining.

‘And nothing about school fees, uniforms, anything,’ said Violet.

Donal’s cough was worse, but Doctor Lynch said there was no need to worry. Keep him warm, no draughts but plenty of fresh air all the same. How on earth did people manage that, Eileen wondered. He was finding the excitement about the girl from England almost too much for him.

‘When will she be here?’ he would ask a dozen times a day.

‘She’s going to be my friend, not yours,’ Aisling said.

‘Mam said she’d be everyone’s friend,’ he replied, his face clouding.

‘Yes, but mainly mine. After all, she wrote to me,’ said Aisling. This was undeniable. There had been a letter which Aisling had read out several times. It was very formal. It was the first proper letter Elizabeth had ever written. It had words like ‘grateful’ and ‘appreciate’ in it.

‘They must have a better educational system altogether over there,’ commented Eileen, reading it.

‘Why wouldn’t they? With all the wealth they made off the backs of other people,’ said Sean. It was Saturday lunchtime. He had come in for his bacon and cabbage lunch. The shop closed on Saturdays at half past one, and the afternoon was spent making up orders in the back yard, but at least it was his own time and he didn’t have to be in and out every time the door clanged open and the bell over the doorframe rang.

‘Now, I hope you won’t be going on with that kind of thing when the child arrives,’ said Eileen. ‘Isn’t it hard enough for her going to another country without having you running her down?’

‘And it isn’t even true either, Da,’ said Young Sean.

‘It is bloody true,’ said his father. ‘But your mother is right. When the child comes we’ll all hold our tongues and put our real thoughts out of our minds for a bit. It’s only fair on the little one.’

‘I don’t have to put my real thoughts anywhere out of sight,’ said Young Sean, ‘I don’t have any of this constant bellyaching about the British to make me feel good.’

Sean laid down his knife and fork and pointed across the table. Eileen interrupted quickly.

‘Will you listen to me, please. I was just about to say that when she comes it might be the opportunity for this family to improve its table manners. Like a lot of puppies you are, slopping food on the table cloth and speaking with your mouths full.’

‘Puppies don’t speak with their mouths full,’ said Eamonn. Donal laughed and, hearing the laughter, Niamh cooed and gurgled in the pram beside the table.

‘I’m sure she’ll think we’re very rude,’ said Aisling. Eileen was surprised to have support from this source.

‘We all talk at the same time and no one listens to anyone else,’ continued Aisling disapprovingly. Something in the way she said it, something schoolmistressish about her tone, made everyone laugh. She didn’t know why they were laughing and looked annoyed.

‘What’s so funny?’ she said, ‘what’s funny?’

Donal was sitting beside her. ‘They’re laughing because it’s true,’ he said. Aisling felt better and laughed a little herself.

They would have to be at the station early to look for someone reliable to look after Elizabeth on the journey. It had been thought that Violet might go with her as far as Holyhead, but it seemed a waste because she would have had to turn around and come back again, and the trains took hours and hours with all the delays and the shortage of fuel, and then of course there was the whole matter of the fare – it seemed senseless to throw money away in these hard times. …

George had wondered whether they should pay the O’Connors for Elizabeth’s board; but Violet had said no. Evacuees in England didn’t pay the host families, it was all part of the war effort. George had pointed out that Ireland wasn’t part of the war effort; Violet had sniffed and said they should be, they jolly well should be, and anyway, the principle was the same. She had given Elizabeth five pounds and told her to spend it intelligently.

At Euston, Violet looked around for respectable middle-aged women to whom Elizabeth might be entrusted. She wanted someone travelling alone. A woman chatting might forget to look after her charge. She had several failures. One was only going to Crewe. One was waiting for her gentleman friend, one was coughing so much that Elizabeth would surely catch some disease from her. Finally, Violet settled on a woman who walked with a stick. She offered Elizabeth’s services as a runner of errands and a helper with luggage on the trip. The woman was pleased with the arrangement and promised to deliver Elizabeth into the hands of a young man called Sean O’Connor at Dunlaoghaire when the boat docked. The woman settled herself into a corner and said she would leave Elizabeth to say goodbye to her parents alone.

Mother gave her a kiss on the cheek and said to try to be a good girl and not to cause Mrs O’Connor too much trouble. Father said goodbye very formally. Elizabeth looked up at him.

‘Goodbye, Father,’ she said gravely. He bent to hug her; he hugged her for a long time. She felt her arms clasping round his neck, but looked at Mother and detected those early signs of impatience. She released him.

‘You’ll write lots of letters, write and tell us everything,’ he said.

‘Yes, but you’re not to go asking Eileen for letter-paper and stamps, those things cost money.’

‘I have money! I have five pounds!’ cried Elizabeth.

‘Hush! Don’t let everyone in the station hear you! That’s the way to get robbed,’ said Violet warningly.

Elizabeth’s face went red and white again, her heart started beating and she heard the train doors slamming.

‘It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine,’ she said.

‘Good girl,’ said Mother.

‘Don’t cry, now, you’re a big girl,’ said Father.

Two big tears ran down Elizabeth’s face.

‘She had no intention of crying until you mentioned it,’ said Violet. ‘Now look what you’ve started.’

The train moved out, and among all the other people waving on the platform stood Mother and Father. Stiffly. Elizabeth shook her head to clear away the tears and as the blur went she saw them standing as if each of them was holding their elbows close in to their sides for fear of touching the other.

DONAL WANTED TO know had all Elizabeth’s brothers and sisters died. Were they killed dead?

‘Don’t be silly,’ Peggy had said. ‘Of course they didn’t die.’

‘Then where are they? Why aren’t they coming?’ Donal was feeling left out because Aisling had appropriated the coming guest so firmly. It was a question of ‘my friend Elizabeth won’t like that’ and ‘when my friend Elizabeth arrives’. Donal hoped that there might be a secret cache of brothers and sisters he could adopt himself.

‘There was only one of her,’ said Peggy.

‘There’s never only one of people,’ complained Donal. ‘There’s families. What happened to them?’

Eileen couldn’t manage to elicit similar enthusiasm from the rest of them. Only Aisling and Donal were excited. Young Sean never noticed who was in the house anyway; Maureen said that it was going to be painful having someone else as silly as Aisling around. Eamonn said he was not going to wash himself for some awful girl he had never met, and anyway he did wash … enough. Niamh, cutting a tooth, was red-faced and angry and cried in long, sharp bouts. Eileen herself had a few moments’ worry about Violet’s little girl. The letter had been very stilted, the girl was used to a much more gracious way of living. If Violet’s short, sharp and unhelpful glimpses into her life were accurate. …

She hoped the child wouldn’t be a frightened pickaheen of a thing, afraid to open her mouth. Then it would really be out of the frying pan and into the fire for the girl … the blitz of London or the noisy O’Connors in full cry. It would be hard to know which was worse.

In any event, the child might bring her closer to Violet again, after all these years. Eileen wished they could have kept in touch more. She had tried, Lord knows, writing often and giving little details about life in Kilgarret and sending Violet’s only child little gifts on birthdays – but Violet only scribbled a card from time to time. It annoyed Eileen that their closeness had seemed to vanish into the air, because it had been a very real closeness based on the fact that they had both been in that convent school on a false premise. Violet, because her family (wrongly) thought that a convent school might give their girl a little polish; Eileen, because her family thought that a convent school in England would be a cut above any kind of a Catholic education in the homeland.

Still, she was going to be brought back into Eileen’s life again and Eileen was glad of it. Perhaps, in a year or two, when this terrible war was over, George and Violet might even come to stay in Donnelly’s Hotel on the other side of the square, and thank Eileen from the bottom of their hearts for putting roses back into the cheeks of their daughter. The friendship would blossom all over again, and Eileen would have someone to remember those long-gone days in St Mark’s which she couldn’t talk to anyone else about because they all said she was uppity to have been at an English school at all. …

She would like to have gone up on the bus herself to meet the little girl. A day in Dublin would cheer her. No squinting over books and bills, she could collect Elizabeth in Dunlaoghaire when the boat got in – or Kingstown, as some people still called it, just to get a rise out of Sean – and then they could take a tram into Dublin. She could take Elizabeth to see the sights, maybe even climb Nelson’s Pillar, something else she had never done. But this was fanciful. … She couldn’t go, Young Sean must collect the girl. He had been so restless and ready to fight with his father over anything, Eileen thought a day off from the shop would be no harm. He was to go off that Tuesday after work, on the evening bus. He could stay with her cousin, who ran a small boarding house in Dunlaoghaire – half a dozen eggs would pay the compliment for giving him a bed in the sitting room for the night. He had strict instructions to be on the pier before the boat even berthed so that the child wouldn’t fear that no one had come to meet her. He was to tell her his name when he saw a ten-year-old in a green coat, with blonde hair, and carrying a brown suitcase and wearing a brown shoulder bag. He was to be welcoming, and give her some buttered brack and a bottle of orange squash while they waited for the bus home. On no account was he to dawdle so they would miss the bus. Eileen knew well Sean’s interest in collecting a ten-year-old girl from a mail-boat was minimal, but if he were to meet any group of young lads about to enlist in the British army, as he had done the last time he was in Dublin, his excitement would be enormous.

Eileen arranged with the Mahers to collect the new kitten on the afternoon Elizabeth arrived; she wanted to have plenty of distract everyone if the arrival was not a success. She also wanted them all to think of the coming of Elizabeth with that of a new, black and white furry bundle, which was guaranteed to be a success.

Mrs Moriarty was a very kind woman. She had a picnic of her own and shared some cold tinned peas with Elizabeth; they spooned them together out of the tin.

‘I didn’t know you were allowed to eat them cold,’ said Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s own little picnic was very dull in comparison; six small, neat sandwiches with the crusts all cut off, very little cheese in three and even less tomato in the other three. There was an apple and two biscuits, all wrapped in white paper – even a folded paper napkin as well.

‘Mother said I must make two meals of this, supper and breakfast,’ she said gravely. ‘But please do have a sandwich now in exchange for the peas.’

Mrs Moriarty took one and pronounced it excellent.

‘Aren’t you a lucky little girl to have a Mammy make all that for you now?’ she said.

‘Well, I made it myself really, but Mother wrapped it,’ said Elizabeth.

Mrs Moriarty told Elizabeth that she was going home to live with her son and his scald of a wife in County Limerick. She had lived since she was a widow in England, and she loved the place, the bigness of London did your heart good. She had worked in a vegetable shop and everyone had been very pleasant and friendly, but now, what with her arthritis, and the blitz and everything, they insisted she came home. Mrs Moriarty didn’t like it a bit. She wouldn’t feel the same when the war was over, the others in the shop would think she had run away. But there was nothing she could do, her son and his brazen strap of a wife had been writing every week – they had even come over to plead with her. Everyone in their street said they were heartless to let a mother be roasted alive by bombs in London, so they had demanded that she come back.

Elizabeth agreed that it was hard to make a journey when you didn’t want to, and as Mrs Moriarty spooned out some tinned pears she told her about Mother’s friends, the O’Connors, who lived in a dirty town in a house where everything was untidy and in a square where animals came and soiled the place. Mrs Moriarty said thoughtfully that maybe Elizabeth should keep her worries about the town being dirty to herself, that perhaps she shouldn’t pass on her mother’s views until she had had time to form an opinion of her own. Elizabeth flushed and said that she wouldn’t dream of saying anything like that when she got to Mrs O’Connor’s – it was only because Mrs Moriarty was a friend and had told her about the awful daughter-in-law. …

They ate a tin of condensed milk to seal their conspiracy, and Elizabeth fell asleep with her head on Mrs Moriarty’s shoulder and didn’t stir until they were all woken up and turned out into the cold night air in Holyhead, with porters shouting to each other in Welsh and great confusion as they waited to be called into line for the mail-boat.

‘Will they speak like that in Ireland?’ asked Elizabeth nervously. The place seemed to be very unsafe with people shouting and laughing in a foreign language. Mother would have said something very putting down about it; Elizabeth tried to imagine what it might have been, but failed.

‘No,’ said Mrs Moriarty. in Ireland we speak English, we’ve thrown out anything that was any good to us, like our language and our way of going on.’

‘And our mothers-in-law,’ said Elizabeth seriously.

‘That’s it,’ laughed Mrs Moriarty. ‘Well, if they’re bringing back mothers-in-law, Lord knows what else they might revive,’ and she leaned on Elizabeth’s shoulder as the line started to shuffle off slowly to the mail-boat, which stood large and awesome in the night.

Sean hated people like Mrs Moriarty, people who clutched at your arm and whispered you confidences out of the side of their mouths as if you were in the know, and they were in the know, but somebody else was not in the know. He pulled away slightly as she started to hiss at him that the little girl was very tired and sick from the journey, and that her mother had a hard mouth, and that he and his family shouldn’t mind too much what she said.

‘I think those people are waving at you,’ he said eventually, in order to escape. A middle-aged man and woman were shouting, ‘Mam, Mam, we’re here!’

Elizabeth looked up for the first time since she had agreed to Sean identifying who she was. She stared long and hard at Mrs Moriarty’s daughter-in-law, who had a smile of welcome nailed on her face.

‘She doesn’t look scalded any more,’ she said clearly. ‘Perhaps the burns have healed now.’

Sean offered Elizabeth brack and lemonade as they walked in the early morning sunlight towards the bus stop.

‘Mam said you were to have this if you were hungry,’ he said ungraciously.

‘Do I have to?’ she asked. Her face was paler than her hair, her eyes were red and her legs were like sticks. He thought she was a miserable specimen.

‘No, indeed you don’t, it was only Mam being nice. I’ll eat it myself, I love brack,’ he said, loyalty to his mother coming unexpectedly to the fore.

‘I didn’t mean. …’ she said.

‘No matter.’ He unwrapped two huge doorsteps of brack with a lump of butter spread unevenly between them, and began to demolish them.

‘Is it cake?’ Elizabeth asked.

‘It’s brack, I told you it was brack, you said you didn’t want it.’

‘I didn’t know what it was.’

‘Why didn’t you ask me?’ He wondered what kind of child would never have heard of brack.

‘I don’t know.’

They walked in silence to the stop for the Bray bus. Her suitcase was heavy and it dragged her down; she wore her shoulder bag criss-crossed over her thin chest. She looked the picture of an orphan.

Sean’s mind was full of the boy he had met last night in the guesthouse. Terry was seventeen, too young to join up, but he said that you could always say your birth certificate went up in the Customs House fire. Nobody in England knew when that was. Terry was off on the very same mail-boat when it turned around. He’d go to the nearest recruitment centre and he’d be in uniform in a couple of weeks. Sean couldn’t sleep a wink from envy. Terry had spoken of other friends who had gone a month ago. Earning proper salaries, real wages, training, drilling, handling weapons, learning all the skill needed; going across the sea soon, but it was all hush-hush. Terry, too, worked for his father, on a small farm. He knew what it was like to get no real money, only pocket money, and a so-called training. He knew what it was like not to be allowed to grow up, your mam asking if you had been to confession, your da asking you to do a bit around the house to help your mam. No life. No chance to get into a uniform. …

‘What kind of uniform does your da wear?’ he asked Elizabeth suddenly.

Her little white face became all flushed, as if someone had hit her with a strong hand and left the marks of a slap.

‘He … isn’t … doesn’t … you see he didn’t have to go to the war. He’s at home.’

‘Why was that?’ demanded Sean, his slight and marginal interest in this new girl waning as she couldn’t even provide him with information about the day to day business of war.

‘He had to stay in the bank, I think … I think they needed. …’ And Elizabeth’s face was working with the effort of trying to explain honestly something she had never understood, but which she knew was something that made Mother and Father prickly with each other.

‘I think they had to keep senior men with bad chests,’ she said eventually.