–  The waynes will be fine with Bridie if you ever want to go out? Or go to night school? No? Too happy by the fire, Mary?

–  What are you going to do with yourself when the waynes go to school? Anything? Nothing? Cat got your tongue?

–  Waynes don’t last forever, Mary, you need to find something else to do with your life!

–  Is there any chance at all you might leave the waynes and go off to Derry with Kathleen when she’s been begging you for months? It would do you good to see something other than these four walls!

He didn’t seem to understand that I couldn’t leave them! What if something happened? What if the RUC lifted their father off the street when I was gadding about with my sister? What if I was killed in Derry, just another civilian caught in the crossfire? I couldn’t risk it. I stayed at the range and cooked three square meals a day as they all careered around me. Time meant nothing as long as they were all happy. My life would start again one day when they were grown up and could look after themselves. When they could get on a plane or a boat and get the hell out of here.

My eyes never left them. My heart never failed to lift for even the faintest smile on their face. How had my mother hit us so easily for so little? Mick was given a pounding one night after he’d fallen in a bed of nettles. He was clumsy and had to be shown the error of his ways. Most women would have run for a doctor but not Sadie Rattigan: she only ever ran for the stick. Daddy didn’t stop her. All he had to do was open his mouth, surely?

I couldn’t imagine John Johns standing by if anyone so much as looked cross at his children. They run through his long legs like pesky cats but he just steps around them. He takes the time to show them little things: a magpie feather, an acorn, a fledgling’s skeleton. Serena has a whole box of treasures; she keeps everything he touches and won’t let any of the boys near it even when they’re wailing the house down. I should give her a lecture on sharing but I can’t. Instead I think, good on you, girl, you keep whatever precious memories you can get your hands on.