the women’s bidding, Niall returned fire, dappling his brother’s face with saliva. ‘It’s not just them as thinks you’re a traitor! For Christ’s sake, can’t you even do the decent thing and wait a year at least?’
‘A year – who’s to say what’s a reasonable time?’ This penchant for sticking to the rules had always annoyed Sean. ‘Why do you always have to do things by the letter? Why can’t you take into account that some people aren’t as regimented as yourself and might just happen to fall in love?’
‘Love – you? Pff!’ Niall laughed, but his eyes bulged with danger. ‘We both know what you’re after!’
‘I don’t give a damn what you think of me, but don’t you dare insult my friends with your mucky insinuations!’ Restricted by his collar and tie, Sean’s brow had broken out in a sweat, his face cherry red, his eyes brimming with fury. ‘Emma’s a good, decent woman and that was the first time we’ve walked out together.’
‘Well … I meant no slur on her.’ Blood still pounding through the veins in his temples, Niall’s reply was tempered by remorse, though only for the woman who might be innocent. ‘Maybe she’s unaware of your position; maybe you misled her like you’ve misled us.’
‘She knows all there is to know about me,’ retorted Sean to this double-edged apology, he too becoming less vociferous now, if no less firm. ‘And I didn’t lie to you. I said I was going out with somebody from work. You just assumed it was a bloke.’
‘It was natural to assume it when you said you were off to play billiards!’ countered Niall.
‘Women can play billiards too, you know! As a matter of fact she’s a very good player, and we did go for a game.’ Normally a much less volatile character, Sean managed to bring his annoyance under control and tried reason instead. ‘Look, I don’t want to fall out with you, Nye. Can’t you just be happy that I’ve found someone again? She’s really lovely. I know you’ll like her when you meet her.’
‘I don’t want to bloody meet her!’ Niall exploded again and, one foot on the doorstep, he dealt his brother’s chest an angry shove. ‘If she knows everything about you she must think it’s all right to go out with a man so recently widowed, and that doesn’t constitute decency in my book.’
‘Then bugger you and bugger your book!’ Equally angered, Sean pushed his assaulter back into the street. ‘I’m seeing her whether you approve or not. You might be an angel, but I’m just a normal bloke. The trouble with you is you can’t put yourself in anybody else’s shoes, you’ve got no bloody imagination!’ And thus saying, he slammed the door in his detractor’s face.
Absolutely fuming, Niall dealt the barrier a vicious thump, then wheeled away. No imagination indeed – how little his brother knew him. Oh, he had imagination in bucketsful! But it was not the sort that could be disclosed. What kind of man had daydreams of his wife being killed in an accident and tried to imagine how he’d feel at the news?
He felt this way now as he strode back to his own house and saw those tight-lipped expressions at the window, knew that the moment he was through the door Ellen, her mother and sisters would be pestering to hear what Sean had had to say, and demanding that he do something about it. For, since marrying into a family that came to lose all its men, Niall had been bestowed with the mantle of leader; in name at least. There was a time when he had been flattered to act as surrogate for Nora’s dead son, Brendan, to be treated like a king in never having to lift a finger, his every requirement brought to hand. But callow vanity had soon been ousted by a truer sense of place. Now he was mature enough to see that Nora and her daughters regarded him as just another child to be manipulated, that he held no real importance for them other than to be the provider; for if ever he was to offer an opinion on anything they would regard it with amusement or, even worse, might scoff. Only in time of crisis, when there was some onerous duty that they could not perform themselves, did they deign to treat him like a man – yet even then instructing him how to do it.
So, yes, perhaps Sean knew him better than he cared to admit. At times like this, when all he wanted was to sink into bed after a hard day’s labour, he did regret marrying Ellen – yearned to be free of those carping bloody women. But he’d never do it, for it wouldn’t be right to walk out on his kids. And so he dreamed instead that one day she would just be taken from him, and tried to imagine how he’d feel upon hearing the news, and how long it would be before he could get shot of her mother from his house. And then, of course, being the moral soul he was, Niall felt guilty and sad because there was no valid reason for wanting to be rid of Ellen, apart from her clan. There was a certain affection between them, they shared five children to whom she was a good mother, and she was a good housekeeper. He was sure he and his wife would have been fine if not for others’ influence. But he could not fight all of them. And so he was left to his imagination …
But imagining something wasn’t the same as reality, Niall told himself angrily upon reaching his door, nor was it a crime. Had he been in his brother’s shoes he knew he would never choose to act like Sean. He would do the right thing. He cared what people thought of him, cared about his good name. And by association with his brother, that name had been plunged in the mire.
Steeped in such troubles, Niall had almost forgotten about the wolf when he saw it again the next day, bounding across the stretch of track he and the gang had just laid, not ten feet ahead, and making him cry out in alarm so that his companions dived onto the embankment thinking he was alerting them to danger. As before, it caused quite a stir amongst the labourers, many of whom dropped what they were doing to scramble up the grassy embankment. One of picked up a stone and hurled it with such accuracy that it drew forth a yelp. Objecting to this, Niall preferred to stand and watch the wolf escape across a pasture, scattering cattle as it ran, and leaving tufts of moulting hair in its wake from a coat that seemed almost red in the sunlight. One would have expected the noise to deter a wild animal, he thought, all that steam and clanking from the locomotives and the cranes, the grinding and hammering – not to mention the human activity. One would have assumed the wolf would take a wide berth, but no, there he was, giving his observers a devil-may-care backwards glance over his shoulder as he finally vanished into the trees.
Their excitement dying down, the labourers were ordered back to work by their foreman, and soon all were busy again renewing the track. Around fifty in all, some worked with picks, some in a wagon casting down shale with their spades, others shovelling earth into corves, yet more manoeuvring the girders and tracks that were suspended from the crane, guiding them into position, whilst a host of others worked with spanners and hammers to secure it, the whole site a cacophony.
His boots crunching the ballast, his ears ringing with the sound of steel upon steel, Niall narrowed his eyes against the smoke from the cigarette that now dangled from the corner of his long Irish lips, as he squatted to wrestle with metal and timber, and his thoughts turned once again to his errant brother.
A fair man, after a night’s sleep he had pondered Sean’s dilemma more objectively, yet for all he tried to put himself in the other’s shoes he could not condone such behaviour. Sean might like to think that the matter was ended, but he had another think coming. From now on Niall would be alert to his every move.
Thus, that evening, tipped off by a watcher that Sean was heading out again, he pre-empted Nora’s instruction to follow him by dashing straight out for confrontation.
‘You’d better not be going to see her again!’
Clean-shaven, his hair slicked with brilliantine and smartly
