a half-moon-shaped arc. Back then, the silver had gleamed bright and shiny like her hopes. The pendant had peculiar markings on it, resembling hieroglyphics, that didn’t at first seem to make any sense.
‘Let me show you,’ he said. He flicked the little disc with his nail, sending it spinning, and conjuring out of thin air the words ‘I Love You’. She gasped silently and watched the words floating in the space between them. But, as soon as she touched the pendant, they were gone.
She placed the necklace in the palm of her left hand, closed her fingers around it and sighed. For six months, she’d worn that necklace nestled between her breasts, never taking it off even to shower or bathe.
‘Mammy,’ said a voice and Sarah, looking up, blinked back tears and smiled at her thin and willowy daughter, dressed in fleecy tiger print pyjamas to ward off the chill of the cold March night.
‘What’re …’ she croaked, cleared her throat and found her voice. ‘What’re you doing out of bed, Molly?’
‘I couldn’t sleep. When I lie down my throat gets all tickly and then I cough and cough.’ She coughed as if to prove her point and her whole body shook. Her face was as white as the stubborn pockets of snow that still clung to the north-facing pavement outside. She sat down beside her mother and looked at the things on the bed.
‘If it’s not any better in the morning, you might have to go to the doctor’s.’
Molly shook her long hair, thin like Sarah’s but a lighter shade of blonde, and picked up one of the photographs that were spread across the bed. ‘Who’s this?’ she said, holding up a picture of two women, in fifties-style skirts and buttoned-up cardigans, leaning against a railing with a shoreline as backdrop.
Sarah craned her neck to see more clearly and smiled. ‘Oh, that’s your nan and Aunt Vi.’
Molly frowned. ‘It doesn’t look like Aunt Vi.’
‘That’s because it was taken a long time ago.’ She took the picture from Molly and peered at it. The women’s full skirts flared in the wind and they fought to hold the skirts down in an effort to protect their modesty. Maybe that was why they were laughing so hard. She smiled, warm memories of her mother flooding back. ‘Look how young they both are. I think it was taken when your Gran and Grandad were going out together, before they were married. I guess Grandad must’ve taken the picture.’
‘Aunt Vi was really pretty,’ said Molly, sifting through some more photos.
‘Yes, yes, she was,’ said Sarah, wondering how the carefree girl in the picture with the tiny waist and shapely legs had turned into such a worrier. And why too, she had never married.
Losing interest in the photographs, Molly plucked the ring off the bedspread. She held it between her finger and thumb and observed, ‘This is really dirty.’
‘Yes,’ said Sarah, dropping the photograph. ‘It’s been in the box a long time. It’d come up fine with a bit of gold polish though.’
‘What is it?’
Sarah swallowed. She had not shown the ring to anyone in over twenty years. She told herself that talking about it now was harmless. It was a relic from her personal history; that was all. But still, her voice caught in her throat when she said, ‘It’s a Claddagh ring.’
‘What’s a Cla-da ring?’ said Molly, stumbling over the unfamiliar syllables.
‘It’s a friendship ring. Sometimes people use them as wedding rings. It’s named after a little village in Galway. Here, let me show you.’ She held out her hand and Molly dropped the ring, cold as clay, into the palm of her hand.
‘The heart in the middle stands for love,’ she said, holding the ring up to the light, its history told in the rounded corners of the soft metal and the many little scratches that covered its surface. ‘The two hands holding the heart mean friendship, and the crown here, on top of the heart, it means loyalty.’ She paused. ‘At least that’s what people say,’ she added.
‘Loyalty?’ frowned Molly, staring at the ring.
‘You know, being true. Always standing up for someone. Like the way you and Nicola are with each other.’
The mention of her best friend’s name ironed out the frown on Molly’s brow. ‘Did Dad give it to you?’
‘No, love. A friend.’ She dropped it into Molly’s outstretched palm.
‘If Dad didn’t give it to you, why don’t you wear it?’
Sarah flinched. She had thought that the child would not notice that she no longer wore her wedding or engagement ring, nor any other piece of jewellery Ian had given her. But of course she had noticed, because children miss nothing. ‘Because it was a long time ago. And I’m not really friends with them, not anymore.’ She plucked the ring from her daughter’s palm and stared at it, remembering the thrill when Cahal had slipped the ring on her finger. And the horror on her father’s face, and her aunt’s, when they’d first seen it, one evening after tea …
‘Where did you get that?’ Dad said, with a quick, sharp glance at Aunt Vi on the opposite side of the kitchen table.
Sarah nervously twirled the ring around the ring finger on her right hand, her pulse quickening. ‘Oh, from someone I’m dating,’ she said as casually as she could muster.
‘Who?’
Sarah thought of the promises she had made to Cahal and told herself determinedly that she was nineteen now and an adult and free to make her own decisions and choices. So why did she feel like a kid again, caught doing something wrong? She’d always known her father and her aunt wouldn’t approve of Cahal, but she had to face up to them sooner or later. She and Cahal would be engaged soon and married before the summer was out. Steeling herself with this knowledge, she took a deep breath and said, ‘Cahal Mulvenna.’
‘Mulvenna?’ said Aunt Vi and stared at Dad, her eyes wide open. ‘Where from?’
‘Ballyfergus. His family live in the Drumalis estate, though I’ve never met them.’
There was a long and heavy silence.
She didn’t of course expect them to be cock-a-hoop at the news that she was dating a boy from the Drumalis council estate. And her father knew without being told – because he knew everyone in Ballyfergus – that Cahal was a Catholic. Which wouldn’t exactly help matters. But their reaction was a whole lot worse than she’d expected. Aunt Vi’s face went pure white and Dad said, as grim-faced as she’d ever seen him, ‘I don’t want you seeing him again.’
‘What?’ said Sarah in disbelief.
‘You heard what I said.’ He tapped the handle of a teaspoon on the table and Aunt Vi stared wordlessly at the table, her mouth, which was never usually at rest, hanging slightly open.
‘That’s ridiculous.’ Indignation inflamed Sarah’s cheeks.
‘You heard what your father said,’ said Aunt Vi.
‘Because he’s not good enough?’ demanded Sarah, glancing at her aunt, then focusing on her father again.
‘Yes,’
