Hardest of all, Angela was gone. She had died very quickly, lingering only a few weeks after her sister, Sarah, told them about the diagnosis, when they learned that her old boyfriend Barry had beaten her up. The doctors at Harrogate Hospital had told Sarah that she was riddled with cancer; it had spread throughout her body.

Blackie had never seen her again. Only her sister and mother had been with her in Harrogate.

He had wept when Sarah had told him Angela was no longer with them. Dead and buried in Harrogate and he hadn’t even known. He would have gone to her funeral.

And now there was Aunt Eileen, not well at all. So fragile. Pale and wan, and Uncle Patrick was worried about her; Blackie was well aware of that. He was always bringing her tonics home from the chemist or suggesting new foods. Yet she still managed the house, did the cooking and looked after her two boys, as she called Uncle Pat and him. No working at the bakery on Saturday morning, though. His uncle had insisted that she stay at home, and he would not agree she could return when she felt better. Very simply, he did not want his wife to work anymore.

Blackie sighed under his breath as he continued down the main street in Upper Armley. He felt down in the dumps, depressed, and he didn’t like being in this state of mind. Normally, he was cheerful and optimistic, looking toward the future with hope, driven by ambition and the desire to succeed, by his curiosity about the world and appetite for life. He sometimes longed for Ireland, for the green fields and rushing rivers he grew up with, for voices like his and people who knew his family. But he knew there was nothing for him there. No work. Little to eat. No way to make a lot of money.

He must shake off this sense of defeat, his preoccupation with the bad things that had happened to him lately. And he must stop being angry with Sarah, who had believed he had physically assaulted Angela. She had made a bad judgment, that was all. He must let it go, wipe it out of his mind.

When he arrived home, Aunt Eileen greeted him warmly, and hid her surprise that he was suddenly back. Normally, he came home at twelve noon for dinner and then hurried off to work, returning at five. Why was he here at two?

“Is everything all right, Blackie lad?” she asked as he came in and sat opposite her, giving her a brief smile. She was mending Uncle Pat’s shirts, sitting in the small sewing chair close to the window. She looked a bit brighter today.

“Sure and it is, Aunt Eileen. I laid the terra-cotta slabs in concrete this morning. Now they are settling, and there was nothing else I could do. So here I be. Any post today, Auntie?”