‘Listen, Geraldine,’ Dermot said. ‘We haven’t got long.’

  ‘Too right we haven’t,’ Geraldine said. ‘I have a churn full of cream to turn into butter before tea-time or I’ll have the head beaten off me.’

  ‘Listen,’ Dermot commanded. ‘This is more important than butter,’ and he told Geraldine what he’d overheard at the Walshes’.

  Geraldine’s mouth had dropped open at the news that their Rosie had given birth to a baby boy and said nothing to any of them. And then Dermot went on to explain how Rosie took no notice of the baby and Geraldine could scarcely believe it, remembering the wonderful mother she’d been with Bernadette and the joy she took in rearing her. ‘You don’t think you’re exaggerating?’

  ‘I’m telling it as it was read out in the letter,’ Dermot said indignantly. ‘And Danny wouldn’t have written that way for fun. Anyway, keep it to yourself about the baby. I mean, tell Chrissie, but no-one else.’

  ‘Why? It isn’t a secret, surely.’

  ‘No, it’s just…I heard Connie say that she’ll start telling folk after the wedding. I mean, Rosie’s not right. Danny’s letter was really sad and I think she needs help, they both need help, and I’m going off to give them a hand.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Who else?’ Dermot said. ‘Could you go, or Chrissie, and would Mammy be bothered about Rosie even if I were to tell her? And Connie, I mean Mrs Walsh, is too busy just now getting Sarah’s wedding ready.’

  Even as Geraldine conceded that what Dermot said was true, she still said, ‘You can’t go either. You’re just a boy and anyway, Mammy wouldn’t let you.’

  ‘Mammy isn’t going to know.’

  ‘She’ll be raging, Dermot.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Dermot said defiantly. ‘Rosie is more important than Mammy’s bad humour.’

  ‘Well just how d’you think it is to be achieved?’ Geraldine said scornfully, thinking this was a pipe dream of Dermot’s. He was not yet thirteen years old, for heaven’s sake.

  But Dermot went on seriously. ‘That is a problem, and I’ve thought about it all day. The only day to go is Saturday, as far as I can see.’

  ‘That’s the day of the wedding.’

  ‘Aye, quite,’ Dermot said. ‘And they’ll all be at the wedding, nearly the whole village, and I can creep into the Walshes’ house and hopefully find a letter or something with Rosie’s address on it.’

  ‘And if you don’t?’

  ‘If I don’t, I’ll find that convent in Handsworth where Connie once let slip they went first. Any would know where that was, I would imagine.’

  ‘You really mean this, don’t you?’

  ‘Every word. And once I get the address, I’ll skirt around Blessington, though they’ll all be too busy at the wedding to see me, and catch the tram from Cross Chapel.’

  ‘And how d’you hope to escape Mammy’s clutches?’

  ‘I have to sit at the back of the church, don’t I, because I’m one of the ushers,’ Dermot said. ‘So, when everyone is in it will be easy to slip out without Mammy noticing. She won’t know until the Mass is over and you know how Nuptial Mass can go on and on? Afterwards is where you and Chrissie come in. You tell Mammy when she asks that I felt ill and was going for a walk to clear my head.’

  ‘Dermot, we’ll have to live with her afterwards,’ Geraldine cried. ‘She’ll kill the pair of us.’

  ‘She won’t. Claim you know nothing of the plans. I’ll back you up when I write.’

  Despite herself, Geraldine was thinking that Dermot’s plan could work and if he was right about Rosie someone needed to go and find out what was what. So although she was frightened of what their mother might do, she nodded her head slowly. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll do our bit and I know I speak for Chrissie too, for when she knows Rosie’s news she’ll be as anxious to help as I am.’

  By the day of the wedding, Dermot had managed to hide a haversack with a few changes of clothes and his jacket on top in the knoll of a tree not far from the church. He would travel in the new suit and jacket his mother had been to Dublin to buy, because he knew it made him look older, and anyway, he wouldn’t take the time to change.

  Everything went according to plan. He slipped from the church as the bride began her walk down the aisle in step with music from the organ, and as all eyes were on the bride, no-one noticed him go.

  Once outside he wasted no time, and, stopping only to retrieve his haversack, he made for the Walshes’. The deserted farmhouse looked odd and he slipped through the door and looked about him. Where would a person keep letters – he presumed Connie had kept them. He knew she’d missed the family and maybe would read the letters over and over as a comfort, as he did.

  Perhaps they would be in one of the drawers of the press. He hated the thought of searching through people’s personal things, but needs must. In the end he had no need to, for a letter was pushed behind a plate on the delph rack and he pulled it out and opened it up and found it to be the one Connie had read aloud.

  As he read the letter again, it strengthened his resolve. He was doing the right thing, the only thing, and he gave a sigh as he looked at the address. It seemed a funny address altogether: 6 Back of 42 Upper Thomas Street, Aston, Birmingham 6, England.

  Dermot felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen in apprehension of what lay before him. But there was no time for hesitation now. He copied the address onto the piece of paper he’d put in his jacket pocket for the purpose and patted his other pocket where all the money he’d prised from his piggy bank was knotted into a handkerchief. He replaced the letter, picked up his haversack and began his journey.

  There was no-one about, for most were at the wedding, and even some shops were closed as he made his way to Cross Chapel without meeting a soul.

  He thanked his lucky stars the conductor on the tram was not one he knew, and he asked for a single to Terenure with no hint of nervousness, for he’d taken the journey to Dublin more than once. But in the whole of his life he’d been no further than Dublin, and he couldn’t help little frissons of excitement building up inside him that were mixed a little with fear.

  He had time in Dublin to look around for things to eat on the boat and train for he wasn’t sailing until the evening tide. He could have enjoyed himself more, knowing the city well, if he wasn’t so frightened of being discovered and so nervous of what lay ahead. He hoped Chrissie and Geraldine would keep protesting they didn’t know where he’d gone, because he’d hate for his mother to arrive on top of him now and haul him home like a naughty wean, and then, at the end of it all, who would be there to help Rosie?

  Dermot had never been on a boat in his life and he had to admit it looked massive in the evening light that was just turning dusky. The boat was called the Hibernian and had he but known it, it was the same boat Rosie and Danny had taken nearly three and a half years before.

  He pressed down any feelings of apprehension and boarded the gangplank as if he’d done it every day of his life. He was not a moment too soon, for just minutes after being aboard, the hooters suddenly screeched and black smoke billowed from the funnels as the engines throbbed into life. Dermot watched the lights of the harbour and the town twinkling through the gloom and he breathed a sigh that was relief mixed with trepidation, but he did know that once an expanse of water was between him and his home in Wicklow, he’d feel safer. He stayed on deck, watching the boat churn through the foaming water, till the darkness and the cold drove him into the saloon bar where he opened the food he’d bought in Dublin. But he left some for the train, for he knew that that too would be a long journey.

  There was a train in the station to meet the boat and Dermot was glad of it, for he was starting to feel weary. He couldn’t sleep deeply, though, for he knew he had to change trains at a place called Crewe; the man who’d clipped his ticket told him, so he’d have to keep his wits about him, and as it was now black night it was all rather unnerving.

  He dozed fitfully and found himself jerked awake at each station and would peer through the dense darkness to find out the name. One of the carriage occupants, seeing his preoccupation with this said, ‘Where you bound for?’

  ‘Birmingham,’ Dermot answered. ‘I have to change at a place called Crewe, I believe?’

  ‘Most people change there,’ the man said. ‘And it’s a big place, you can’t miss it.’ And then he added, ‘No need to ask where you’ve come from.’

  ‘No,’ Dermot said, and because there was surely no harm in telling this man, this stranger, he said, ‘I come from County Wicklow and I’m going to my sister’s place in Birmingham.’

  ‘Holiday?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘You’ll find it a sight different from Ireland.’

  ‘I will, surely,’ Dermot said. ‘But that’s the beauty of it. There’s no point in going to a place just the same as your own.’

  The man laughed. ‘You’re right there,’ he said. ‘How old are you?’

  Dermot was prepared for this question and knew that for him to state his real age would be madness, and so he said, ‘I’m fourteen and I’ll be fifteen next month.’

  ‘Now I’d have put you older,’ the man said, and Dermot gave a secret smile of triumph, for the man hadn’t doubted him in the slightest, and they chatted together amicably until they parted company at Crewe.

  Crewe was a big place, bigger than Dermot had ever seen, and it was also confusing and nerve-racking, especially for someone who’d never left his native land before. A railway official helped Dermot find the right train for Birmingham and he reached New Street Station at nearly half past four in the morning, for the station clock showed the time.

  He climbed stiffly from the train aching with tiredness and marvelling at the size of the trains and the station and the crowds of people, and feeling a little lost. He was also very hungry, but he’d finished all he had brought and so he sat down on a bench and tried to ignore the pangs of hunger gnawing at his stomach. He watched the station grow quiet after the train had left and the passengers dispersed and wondered what to do next.

  He could see that it was dark as pitch outside, and he had no desire to traipse around an alien city at such an hour looking for lodgings, nor could he try and find his way to Rosie’s, and anyway, he was too tired. He lay down on the bench and, despite the chilly wind funnelling through the station, decided to try and sleep for an hour or two. Using his haversack as a pillow, he closed his eyes.

  When Minnie first missed Dermot outside the church, Geraldine had told her, as planned, that Dermot had been taken ill and had gone for a walk. The distracted Minnie would then do nothing but go home and see if he’d returned there.

  There was, of course, no sign of him, and eventually Seamus prevailed on her to go to the reception at Conlan’s Hotel in Blessington and she’d gone, feeling sure if Dermot wasn’t there already he’d turn up in due course. But there was no sign of Dermot, and by the end of the meal, worry had begun to eat at Minnie. Her fear was that Dermot lay injured somewhere amongst the Wicklow Hills, and Seamus led a search party to look for him.

  Chrissie and Geraldine watched these proceedings with trepidation, knowing that their mother’s worry would turn in the end to anger, and the more she fretted, the greater would be her fury. As darkness rendered the search useless, Minnie informed the Guard and even in front of him, Chrissie and Geraldine still stuck to their story. The Guard, however, knowing the nature of young boys, asked if anything was missing.

  That had given Minnie a jolt and she’d checked his room and found his haversack, jacket and numerous other clothes to be gone. The Guard then took a different view of it. He told Minnie the boy had gone off on some adventure of his own and would probably come back of his own accord, and so not to fret. ‘Boys will be boys,’ he said, and he wouldn’t be at all surprised if he didn’t just turn up in the morning as if nothing had happened.

  But Minnie knew he wouldn’t, for suddenly in a flash, she knew where he’d gone. At the wedding reception Connie had told her about Rosie and the premature baby and the letter Danny had sent. ‘I’m not broadcasting it to the town until after the wedding,’ she’d said. ‘But you have a right to know as Rosie’s mother and grandmother to the wee boy.’

  Minnie somehow knew that Dermot had discovered the letter Danny had sent, and he’d gone running to Rosie as he used to do when he was small. She was even more certain of this when she found the piggy bank, that had been stuffed with money, to be empty. She knew too the girls must have been fully aware of where he’d gone. It didn’t matter how much they protested ignorance of Dermot’s intentions, Minnie’s anger had to have some outlet.

  She’d used the strap on her daughters before, many times, but never with the intensity she wielded it that day. At first she fell upon the pair of them like a wild animal, kicking and punching them before lashing into them with the strap until their screams brought Seamus running from the fields where he was checking the stock before turning in.

  ‘For God’s sake, woman,’ he cried, pulling his wife away and holding her arms. ‘Enough is enough. What’s done is done and nothing will be gained by this carry-on.’

  Minnie’s eyes were wild, her face was brick-red and her hair had sprung from the grips holding it in place. Strands of it hung about her face and she was out of breath and panting heavily. She appealed to Seamus. ‘He’s gone to Rosie, our Dermot. That’s where he always used to go whenever he was missing.’

  ‘He doesn’t know her address.’

  ‘How do we know that?’ Minnie said. ‘Connie may have given it to him. Anyway,’ she went on, as Seamus shook his head, ‘however and wherever he got it, that’s what he’s done. I know it, and I also know he wouldn’t have been able to do it alone. These,’ she said, indicating her cowering daughters, ‘knew all about it. They must have known.’

  Seamus regarded his daughters, no longer screaming but holding one another while they sobbed. He took in their bruised faces and the marks across their arms and their backs, where the strap had ripped into their smart wedding clothes, shredding them into strips, and he said to Minnie, ‘If you’re right and Dermot is away to Rosie we shall hear soon enough and nothing is to be gained by beating the girls. There is to be no more of it and let us hope you haven’t alerted half the county. Come away to the fire now.’ And to his daughters he said curtly, ‘If you had any knowledge of what Dermot was up to you have only yourselves to blame for your mother’s chastisement. Get to bed now, the pair of you.’

  Trembling with shock and distress, the girls were quick to do as their father bid. The tears still flowed and they silently helped one another where the clothes were stuck to their backs. The weals from the strap still bled and they lay on their stomachs, their backs being too sore, and eventually Chrissie rubbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her nightgown and whispered fiercely, ‘I hate her!’

  ‘Ssh.’

  ‘I don’t want to ssh,’ Chrissie said. ‘I hate her I tell you.’

  ‘I know,’ Geraldine whispered. ‘And so do I.’

  ‘She’ll not lay a hand on me again,’ Chrissie said. ‘That I know, for I’ll give her the same back.’

  ‘Chrissie!’ Geraldine said, shocked that Chrissie should talk of raising her hand to their mother.

  ‘I will,’ Chrissie maintained. ‘I will. If we’d joined forces today she’d never have managed the two of us.’

  Geraldine acknowledged this was true and that surely her mother hadn’t the right to do what she had done. Every bit of her ached or throbbed, but what was the point of talking about it all now. Weariness suddenly caused her to yawn and she said, ‘Let’s try to sleep now. Things may look better in the morning, they often do.’

  Chrissie shook her head. She’d never feel differently about this business, but she heard the tiredness in Geraldine’s voice and gave her arm a little squeeze. ‘All right.’ And as Dermot landed on the shores of Holyhead, his sisters eventually slept fitfully.

  Dermot was woken by an early morning train pulling into the station in a cloud of steam, with singing rails and the squeal of brakes. For a second or two he was disorientated, wondering where he was, and then he rolled off the bench thankfully enough for it was hard and knobbly and he was suddenly so cold his teeth chattered.

  He was also wondering if he’d done the wrong thing, for although he looked older than his years he wasn’t quite thirteen and he suddenly felt unequal to the task before him. Why and how did he think he was the one to help Rosie? Wouldn’t one of the girls have been better?

  Impetus had carried him so far, leaving little time to think, but no-one knew what was wrong with Rosie, so he didn’t even know what he would be facing. He also wondered at the financial state of the family. Danny had no job, for if he had Rosie would have told them in her letters home. Wouldn’t it add to their financial burden if he landed on their doorstep?

  He had money with him for now. His parents had given him plenty each week, since almost the day of his birth, and he’d happily share that but it wouldn’t last forever.

  However he decided, he couldn’t just give up and go home without even seeing Rosie after coming that far, and so he left the station and went out into the streets, quiet because it was Sunday so there wasn’t one person around to ask for directions. He didn’t quite know what to do, but he acknowledged that there was nothing to be gained by standing about and he decided to walk around a bit and see if he could find someone to ask how a person could get to this place called Aston.

  Although used to Dublin, Dermot was amazed at the array of shops Birmingham had to offer, fine buildings too. He wandered through the city streets and didn’t see a soul and he thanked his lucky stars it was at least dry and fine.

  Eventually, he came to a road called Colmore Row and in the distance he could see the spire of a church, and he made for it, knowing that while Sunday was a quiet day for shoppers it was often a busy one for the churches.