One of them had spoken to him once, a big raw-boned woman with a shawl wrapped around her. He could hardly understand what she was saying, her accent was so strong – Wisha Gawd bless ye son that ye may have a laang life and heppiness. Then one of the Brothers had popped up out of nowhere and told her to get off with herself before he called the Guards. He’d given Terry a wallop on the back of the head too, just for listening to her. Terry had looked back at the woman straggling off down the boreen, in her bare feet, the brightly shining tin cans strung on her arm and rattling, and something in him had yearned after her, as if somehow she had tied a bit of elastic to him and it was stretching out and getting thinner and thinner, until she rounded a bend and was gone, and the elastic went slack.

Maybe he had tinker blood, himself? He wouldn’t mind it if he had. They were hard people, tough and hard, you didn’t give them any lip. One day a gang of them came to Carricklea and took away a young fellow, one of their own, that Brother Harkness had been giving a hard time to. They shouted for Harkness to come out and take off his holy collar and face them, but Harkness wisely kept indoors. Eventually the Guards were called and the tinkers scattered, dragging their young fellow along with them. The whole school had let out a cheer, and next day at breakfast, dinner and tea there was nothing on the refectory tables, only stale bread and rusty water. It was to teach them all a lesson. It didn’t matter. They had already learned a bigger lesson, which was that you could be rescued.

The Girl, too, she had a bit of the look of a gipsy, especially in the bluish shadows under her eyes, and in the stringy backs of her agile little hands.

She was from the countryside, somewhere in the  middle, where he supposed the land was parched and coloured yellowy- brown. That was why she so loved to be by the sea. Any chance she got she was down here, lying on her blanket, with her eyes closed and her lips curled at the corners in a little secret smile. He had never known anyone so happy, so contented. She never complained, even when one of her johns cut up rough, or one of the other girls in the house got into a fight with her and pulled her hair. She was a fearsome fighter herself, and everyone knew to avoid those sharp little fists of hers.

One thing about the seaside was that cigarettes tasted better there. Must be something to do with the ozone in the air. He wasn’t sure what ozone was, but people talked about it all the time so it must be something good.