read his paper, casting surreptitious glances from the print, he continued to observe as she chatted and laughed with other customers, his interest in part for the nice manner she had about her, but mainly for the attractive swellings under her jumper. Embarrassed to find himself reacting to them in base fashion, he tore his eyes away. What was the point in tormenting oneself over something one could not have? With no hope of concentrating on the press, after downing his pint, he went home.
Nora was there alone, waiting up for him. Harriet and Dolly had gone up to bed, the only trace of them being the scent of cocoa that wafted from their coats as he brushed against them in the passage. The elderly widow was partially ready for bed too, for her grey hair was dangling in a long plait over one shoulder. But for now, she sat by the firelight, employing its weak glow and that from the one remaining lamp as she squinted over her mending. Her iron jaw relaxed into a smile, as he hung his coat on a hook and came to join her by the fire. ‘You weren’t long. Didn’t you enjoy it?’
His nose beginning to run again from the sudden change in temperature, Niall pulled out a frayed handkerchief and trumpeted into it before answering, ‘Aye, it was a nice break, but I were hoping to have Reilly as company and he was working.’ His tone was dull and he made absentminded dabs at his nose. ‘No point being sat on me own. I might as well be in bed.’
Nora put aside her mending, lifted heavily corseted hips from her chair and went to fetch him some cocoa. ‘Never mind, he might be available next time.’
Her son-in-law nodded, shoved his handkerchief away, then sat rubbing his hands and staring into the glowing embers, conjuring pictures from them. Yet even then he could not concentrate, for he found his absent thoughts depicting not Reilly, but the smiling girl behind the bar.
Is this some fluke, asked a wary Niall, when his moment of wakening failed to produce that sensation of dread, or is it some miracle? Seemingly overnight, the weather had taken a turn for the better too. The sun shone, the air was crisp instead of damp, and the sky was clear and blue. The odd daffodil began to flutter along the grassy ramparts of the city walls. Where yesterday had been a brown and barren tangle of dormant briar along the railway embankment, there were primroses, and bees that zigzagged between them. At the shrieking whistle and clattering wheels of a train, startled lambs bucked and skittered, kicking their heels in the air. A stoat came out of hiding to enjoy the sun, his beady little eye ever alert for the delighted man who watched him as he darted like quicksilver among the rocks at the side of the track, his lissom body dipping and gyrating into nook and cranny, the sunlight gleaming on his russet coat, his entire being conveying the sense of rejuvenation that Niall himself felt.
With the following days proving that this was no aberration, at the end of the week when his mother-in-law doled out pocket money from the wage packet he had just handed her, Niall clinked it thoughtfully, before saying, ‘You know, I reckon you were right about that little trip to the pub doing me good …’
‘It must have done.’ She cast a shrewd eye at him. ‘If it’s made you visit the barber at last.’
Niall rubbed his shorn neck defensively, and sat at the table with his children. ‘Aye, well, I thought I’d better smarten meself up. I got a few disapproving looks from the landlady the last time I was in. I thought I might just trot along for another pint later on – don’t worry!’ He saw Juggy’s face turn anxious. ‘I’ll only be half an hour – that’s if Gran doesn’t mind?’
Pleased to be able to ease the widower’s unhappiness, Nora said generously as she served his meal first, ‘Why would I mind?’
‘Well, it is Lent …’ A time of self-denial.
‘Ah, yes,’ replied Nora and, to his consternation, she said nothing more on the subject as Harriet and Dolly finished bringing the rest of the plates. Whereupon, she sat down to murmur grace.
Niggled by disappointment, Niall hardly tasted the fish upon his fork, as he inserted it time after time into his mouth, all the while machinating how to get around this problem. But it turned out he did not have to, for later, after the children had gone to bed, Nora spoke again on the subject. ‘I’ve been thinking, you’ve been through enough deprivation lately – and it’s not as if you’ll be overindulging.’
Startled, Niall looked to Harriet and Dolly for agreement. ‘I don’t want to go upsetting anybody …’
‘You won’t upset me.’ Hardly seeming to care, Harriet flicked over the pages of her magazine, Dolly too murmuring permission as she mended the hem of her overall.
‘Oh, thanks!’ He projected a somewhat relieved gratitude at all of them.
‘I almost wish I could join you myself.’ Neither she nor her daughters would ever frequent such a venue, but, added Nora, ‘It’d be good to have a change of scenery sometimes.’
Niall was keen to oblige with the next best thing. ‘Well, if you can’t go there it’ll have to come to you. I’ll bring a couple of bottles home for you and the lasses – maybe some chips an’ all if you’re good,’ he added with a wry smile, as he went to towards the scullery, intending to tidy himself up.
‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’
He swirled round at Harriet’s sardonic query.
‘Lent?’ she reminded him with a smirk. ‘Some of us are good little Catholics.’
Dolly emitted her goatish bleat of a laugh. ‘Don’t believe her, Nye! She reckons to have given up sweets, but she’s got a bag of mint humbugs tucked down the side of her chair. Don’t think I haven’t seen you cramming them in when you think nobody’s looking!’ She gave another mocking laugh at her sister’s outrage.
‘Mints don’t count as proper sweets,’ retorted Harriet, under her mother’s disapproving eye.
Niall feigned to wince, and said to Nora, ‘So, no beer and chips then – I’d better get out while the going’s good.’ And he shut the scullery door on them.
But Nora’s disapproval had only been pretence, and in his absence she exchanged warmer words with Harriet and Dolly. ‘He seems a lot chirpier does the lad, doesn’t he? Aye … I’m glad there’s something made him feel better, poor soul. ’Then she gave a heavy sigh and reverted to her faraway state of bereavement, her face haggard, and uttering wistfully, ‘I wish a glass of beer’d have the same magic properties for me.’
After a quick wash and shave, and a change of attire, Niall went upstairs and popped his head into the children’s bedrooms to bid them good night and also deliver a word of warning for them not to read too long in bed.
‘Dad, will you tell her to stop kicking me?’ begged Honor, from her cramped corner of the room that had been divided into two in order to separate boys from girls. ‘I keep reading the same sentence over and over.’ Lifting herself from the pillow, she tugged one of her plaits from beneath her head, with exasperation.
‘I’m not doing it on purpose!’ The small face protruding from the other end of the bed burst into angry tears. ‘There’s a lump under me bum.’
Niall laughed softly as he came to perch on their bed and to mop the tears. ‘I don’t think I want to know what it is.’
‘I mean the bed!’ Juggy sat up and gave a furious thump at the mattress.
‘You’re doing it again!’ Honor laid down her book in despair, and whilst her
