Dermot was grateful for the money for he’d noticed the coal was very low and resolved to pop along that morning and order a few bags, but the reference to his sister’s health had bothered him, for his mother had said nothing. He resolved to write and ask them what was wrong.

  But before he was able to, the very next day a letter came from Chrissie. As Dermot read it he burned in shame for putting his sisters through such an ordeal and he was glad they’d had a strong champion in the form of Dennis Maloney to stand against their parents. He was glad too that his sisters were away from the place and safe, and he read that part of the letter out to Rosie.

  ‘God, Dermot, our mother is a vicious woman,’ Rosie burst out. ‘I mean, I’ve felt the power of her hand many a time, and aye, she used the strap on me, on all of us time and enough, but she must have nearly half-killed the girls for Chrissie to be unable to go to work.’

  ‘I know,’ Dermot said miserably. ‘I’ve been made more aware of her unfairness and all since I’ve been growing up. I did try speaking out a few times, but it made things worse, not better.’

  ‘It would,’ Rosie said, nodding her head. ‘I can see that, for Mammy would see it as you taking their part against her and she’d blame them for it.’

  ‘I feel so guilty about it all.’

  ‘It’s too late for that, Dermot. What’s done is done,’ Rosie said. ‘What else does Chrissie say?’

  Geraldine and I are so happy here. There is no-one to berate us or raise a hand to us. Dennis’s sister Pauline is kindness itself and it was her that said I couldn’t go to work this week because of my face, and she went along herself and told them I had a chill.

  I feel much better now and will return on Monday and ask if there is an opening for Geraldine. If there isn’t now, there soon will be, for when I marry Dennis I’ll be working in the grocery store and she can take my place. Now my face is nearly back to normal we are seeing the priest this Sunday about calling the banns.

  The townsfolk are very curious about my living here, though I’ve taken care they’ve not seen myself or Geraldine till we were fit to be seen, though it was hard to keep our presence a secret. Dennis just told any who asked that with our impending marriage it was easier for me living in the town and Geraldine is keeping me company. I don’t know what they are thinking, nor do I care much, and anyway, your disappearance caused far more of a stir.

  Tell Rosie it’s impossible for her to come home, but there’s no reason at all why Geraldine and I couldn’t come over for a few days and see them. Dennis wouldn’t mind, he knows how much we’ve missed them, so maybe in a few months we’d manage that. It’s something to look forward to. In the meantime, tell her to write. We all miss her letters.

  When Dermot read that out to Rosie she felt her heart lighten. She’d been outraged when Dermot told her what had happened to her sisters, but the last two paragraphs cheered her. ‘I’m glad Chrissie and Geraldine are out of such an atmosphere,’ she said. ‘But oh how I’d love to see them. This Dennis Maloney must be an understanding sort of man.’

  ‘He’s all right,’ Dermot said.

  ‘Thank God for him, then,’ Rosie said. ‘And thank God the girls had somewhere safe to go to.’

  On Sunday evening, Rosie began to acknowledge how much more positive everything is when a person is warm and well fed. On Saturday they had had bacon and cabbage and potatoes in their jackets, and on Sunday a good beef stew with food Dermot bought and which he insisted Rosie ate too. And there was plenty of coal to drive the chill from the house. Not knowing of the money her mother-in-law had sent, she wondered how much Dermot had left. She wanted to ask him, but not yet. She’d live in fool’s paradise a little longer and believe she would always have a full belly and a warm house.

  She was happy and contented for a wee while at least, with Bernadette in bed and Anthony slumbering in the cradle. Dermot was sitting opposite her helping her unravel wool from a heap of knitted garments she’d bought at the rag market the previous day as they chatted amicably together.

  Suddenly the door burst open and Danny, who’d been out for a stroll, burst out, ‘There’s talk of a new factory opening up at Quinton, one of the fellows said, and they’re setting on tomorrow.’

  Rosie chose her words with care. ‘Danny, Quinton is miles away.’

  Dermot said nothing, but he wondered what it was that kept the hope alive in Danny; the motivation that kept him job-hunting fruitlessly day after day, dashing after this or that and never even getting a sniff. But then, did he have to even wonder? The motivation surely was his wife and children, and the need Danny had to feed and clothe them decently and keep a roof above their heads.

  And then hadn’t he come upon the lines of men outside the Labour Exchange one day in the week when he was making for the shops. The sight of the long, long queue of dejected men, shambling along in greasy caps pulled down and often in ragged, threadbare clothes with boots so cobbled there was little boot left, had depressed him for days. It had been sleeting and he was almost ashamed of his good thick clothes and boots that kept him both warm and dry. He could see why Danny had described unemployment as a living death.

  And now Danny said, ‘It’s a tidy step all right, Rosie, but it’s a chance of a job. I have to go, pet. You see that?’

  And for what? thought Rosie. For another glimmer of hope to be nailed into the coffin of despair that someday will engulf you, for no-one can go on day after day, week after week, and be constantly rejected without it having some effect.

  But none of these thoughts did she betray in her voice and manner as she said, ‘Of course I see, Danny. What is the place?’

  ‘A new place called Cartwright’s, a small engineering factory. I want to be there for at least seven. That means leaving here before six.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Dermot assured him. ‘I’ll be here and getting up early is no odds to me. Haven’t I been doing it for years to do the milking with Daddy?’

  Both Rosie and Dermot saw the relief flood Danny’s face and the droop of his shoulders as he relaxed. With Dermot there he could go off and search for this job like any other man, and do the job too if he was able.

  Dermot was concerned about this, for he knew he couldn’t stay indefinitely with Rosie and Danny. He’d tried to get Rosie to talk about her feelings for the baby but she never would, though she’d chat away about any other item under the sun. What he’d picked up on was that Rosie was so used to holding herself back from the baby that she didn’t know how to break that mould.

  And something must break it, Dermot thought, before the family is destroyed.

  Next morning, Dermot lay in the dark of the attic and heard the rain bouncing on the roof of the skylight like so many pebbles. He heard Danny open the door below him and he slid from his makeshift bed and, careful not to wake the sleeping Bernadette, he dressed quickly and stole down the stairs in his stocking feet, his boots in his hand.

  Danny was jiggling a restless Anthony in his arms and trying to make himself something to eat at the same time. Dermot tied his boots up quickly and held out his arms for the child. ‘Give him to me. What’s he doing up anyway?’

  ‘Search me,’ Danny said. ‘He’s been restless all night. I’ve been up three or four times already. I lost count after a while. And he was too restless now to leave upstairs; he’d have woken Rosie and then Bernadette in short order.’

  ‘I’ll give him a feed, shall I?’ Dermot said. ‘And change his nappy. That might settle him.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘’Course I would,’ Dermot said. ‘Isn’t that what I’m here for. You get yourself away. D’you see the weather? You have a fine day for it.’

  Danny listened to the rain and the billowing wind moaning in the yard and shrugged his shoulders. ‘It can’t be helped. I’ve travelled further in worse,’ he said, but he was worried for he knew the rain would go through his paper-thin clothes in minutes and soak into his feet, for the boots lined with cardboard to extend their life would no longer keep water out.

  But, he told himself, was he to be put off going for a job because of a drop of rain? ‘Don’t take Anthony out in this,’ he continued, ‘and don’t let Rosie go either. She’s not all that strong and has a tendency to coughs and colds. The last thing I want is for her to go down with something now. Ida will mind Anthony while you take Bernadette to school.’

  ‘Aye,’ Dermot said, testing the bottle he’d made up for the baby on the back of his hand.

  ‘Glad she has only to go in the morning and come back in the evening on days like these,’ Danny said. It was a system he’d talked over with the nuns after Anthony’s birth, to send Bernadette with her dinner rather than fetch her home. Though most children went home, there were some living even further away than the Walshes that took their dinner and the nuns readily agreed that Bernadette could do the same.

  By the time Danny left, Dermot had changed Anthony and was halfway through feeding him. He watched the baby sucking in blissful contentment and snuggled him close, and wondered why Rosie couldn’t do the same.

  The baby went to sleep later over Dermot’s shoulder and he laid him down in the cradle by the range and tucked the blankets around him. He knew he would leave this child with no-one but Rosie that morning, for he’d decided a stand had to be made somewhere.

  ‘Danny doesn’t want the baby taken out in this,’ he said to Rosie later as she ladled porridge into bowls.

  ‘Aye,’ Rosie said. ‘Leave him at Ida’s.’

  ‘He’s fast asleep.’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘No,’ Dermot said. ‘It’s coming down in bucketfuls. He’d be drenched and he’s already been disturbed half the night,’ Danny said. ‘He’ll likely sleep till I come back from taking Bernadette to school.’

  Rosie bit her lip in consternation. ‘Look, Rosie,’ Dermot said. ‘He’s one small baby. Surely to God you can see he can’t go out in this? Even as far as Ida’s.’

  Of course she saw. She nodded her head. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll take Bernadette today.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ Dermot said. ‘Danny said you weren’t to go either. He said you get a lot of coughs and colds.’

  Rosie was about to protest when Bernadette burst in. ‘She does,’ she said, remembering how frightened she’d been when her mammy was ill. ‘She coughs and coughs and has to stay in bed ages and I can’t even see her and have to stay with Auntie Ida or Auntie Rita.’

  Rosie stared at her daughter and realised for the first time how much the child hated her being unwell. She couldn’t risk going out into that bleak morning after her child had spoken like that.

  ‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ Dermot said with a smile.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Rosie said. ‘But be as quick as you can.’

  ‘I will,’ Dermot said. ‘I’d hardly dawdle in this.’

  However, barely had the door closed on Dermot and Bernadette when the baby began to stir. Rosie watched almost fearfully as the movements in the crib became more marked and the mewling noises turned to a plaintive cry. She sat almost rooted to the spot as the cries turned to wails. Surely, she thought, Dermot must be back soon, or…she’d go for Ida. That’s what she’d do.

  But she found she couldn’t go and admit, even to her friend, that she was afraid to pick up one small baby, her own small baby. She approached the crib and looked down, wondering why she couldn’t love this child as she did Bernadette.

  Anthony’s arms were threshing from side to side and his face scarlet as his cries reached crescendo level. Gently, Rosie lifted him into her arms and held him against her shoulder, and he could have been anyone’s child, a friend’s, a stranger’s, she felt so little for him. She patted his back rhythmically and automatically rocked from side to side. ‘Ssh, ssh, ssh,’ she said over and over, and eventually the baby’s cries eased and became hiccupping little sobs. Rosie lifted the baby down and looked at him. She wasn’t even sure what colour eyes he had and now she saw the newborn blue had turned to brown, and then his mouth worked suddenly and fearing he would continue to cry she rocked him while she sang a lullaby.

  Anthony stopped struggling and listened, a pucker appearing between his eyes, which he screwed up in an attempt to focus. Then his eyes suddenly opened wide and he gazed at Rosie, and then a smile – a real and beautiful smile – lit up his whole face.

  Rosie was struck with such unexpected and inexplicable love for the child and with such force she felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach by a mule and her legs trembled so, she’d felt for a chair with her free hand and sat down on it, gazing at her child as if she couldn’t get enough of him.

  Ida, calling in to see how she was, saw her sitting cuddling Anthony as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘Thank God!’ she said, but silently and afterwards she said to Rita, who she waylaid on the way home from work. ‘I made up a bottle for the babby and she gave it to him as nice as you like. Oh my God, it brought tears to my eyes, it did really.’

  Rita was as delighted as Ida. ‘I think our Rosie’s out of the woods now all right,’ she said. ‘If Danny could only get a job their lives would be perfect.’

  ‘Ah wouldn’t it,’ Ida said, ‘but that’s as far away as ever. Danny is just one of thousands of men in the same boat.’

  When Dermot returned home wringing wet and saw Rosie with the baby in her arms, he stood dead still in the doorway. Rosie turned to see him there and said calmly. ‘Come in Dermot, come up to the fire and get those wet things off before you catch a chill.’

  Dermot went as if in a trance and took off his wet coat and cap and hung them on the rail above the range. He was unable to keep his eyes off a sight he was beginning to think he’d never see. Ida had not long gone and Anthony was finishing the bottle she’d made for him. But, even after it, winded and changed, Rosie held him, reluctant to lay him down. When Dermot suggested he put him in the crib ‘He’s had weeks, months there,’ she said. ‘Denied of his birthright, my love.’

  ‘Why!’ Dermot said. ‘I mean, what’s changed?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rosie said. ‘It hit me like a ton of bricks and I don’t have any explanation.’

  She remembered telling Danny she couldn’t love a child begotten through drunkenness and lust, but it wasn’t that really. She knew the child was just the innocent victim of something that had happened that previous Christmas Eve. But she wasn’t sharing any of that with her young brother. She didn’t want to blame him either or have him think she was blaming him, for none of it was his fault either, so she spoke cautiously, ‘Things were different for us after you were born, Dermot.’

  ‘Geraldine has often said something similar,’ Dermot said. ‘Of course I saw a lot myself as I grew. You accept things as they are when you’re just a wean.’

  ‘Aye,’ Rosie said. ‘Well I didn’t want the same thing to happen to Bernadette.’

  ‘That’s not likely though is it?’ Dermot said. ‘You and Danny are different parents to ours.’

  ‘I know. At least I see it now,’ Rosie said. ‘But if you add that fear to the one that I’d never be able to give birth to a healthy child and my reaction because of it, it probably explains why I felt as I did about Anthony initially.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now. Oh God, I love him to pieces,’ Rosie said. ‘I can’t imagine ever thinking otherwise, but I shall make it up to him.’

  ‘I know one person who will be pleased,’ Dermot said. ‘And that will be Danny.’

  ‘Aye,’ Rosie said, and added with a sigh, ‘God, he’ll need something to cheer him.’

  ‘You think he’s not a chance of this job at Quinton then?’

  ‘Not a snowball’s chance in Hell,’ Rosie said. ‘And he’ll be more dispirited than ever.’

  So Rosie was very surprised to see a happy, smiling Danny at the door some hours later; just as he was to see his wife lifting Anthony from the crib, a made-up bottle already in her hand. Dermot had gone down for Bernadette and so there was just the two of them and the baby, and Rosie said, hardly daring to hope, ‘You…you got the job?’

  ‘At Quinton, no,’ Danny said. ‘Men must have been queuing there from black night; the queues were three deep and spreading right down the road. The foreman came out at eight and told anyone from halfway down there was no point in us waiting and so I set off home again. I didn’t come back straight away because I felt too disappointed to face you. I went down the cut instead. I helped a boatie leg it through the tunnel as he was pulling a load of coal behind him and he gave me a shilling and I earned another shilling and a double brandy for helping a narrowboat through the locks. Don’t look like that, Rosie, it was only the one double brandy and that was only because we were so soaked. It was keeping the life in us.’

  Rosie felt Danny’s jacket and knew he told the truth; though the rain had stopped now, his jacket was soaking. ‘Take that off and come up to the fire. I’ll put the kettle on. A drink may warm you.’

  ‘It will,’ Danny said. ‘But let me finish the tale first. When I came out of the pub, Ted was on the canal and he hailed me. He said I’d saved him a journey for he was coming here tonight. Syd has done a runner it seems. Young Syd and Ted had a set-to more than a week ago and the boy took off.

  ‘Ted took no notice, thinking each day he’d be back. Then this morning he had a letter from the lad saying he’d joined the merchant navy as a cadet and signed on for seven years. Ted and his wife can’t manage the narrowboat on their own and they’ve offered me a job, and won’t I like it better than any factory?’

  Rosie was hardly able to believe it. After all this time, Danny in work! ‘Permanent?’

  ‘Aye, permanent. Ah Jesus, Rosie, how good it feels.’ He grabbed Rosie and held her tight and she was heedless of the sodden jacket, though she held Anthony away from it. ‘I’m delighted for you,’ she said. ‘And now go and get out of those wet things before you get your death and I’ll feed this young man. In the oven I have liver and onions cooking that Dermot went shopping for this morning, a fine meal for a celebration.’