–  Podgie McCourt’s son is dead, shot through the head in front of his mother!

–  Oh, God save us! God save us all! Mind, he was often warned not to sell An Phoblacht, but Lord alive, his poor family!

They both try to ignore the fact that despite Sean McCourt’s execution I’ve started crying again … for myself. We all know what’s in the case. My stupid life, or what’s left of it.

–  Daddy?

–  I must be going, Mary.

He swings himself into the tractor and fires it up and I feel a kind of river running through my head. I’m so tired. I run to him and start to plead.

–  Please, Daddy! Take me home, please. I want to go home. Daddy, please, please don’t leave me here, please don’t do this, please stop, please stop …

Then he looks at me, crying and begging and trying to stay his arm. We’ve been here before. We’ve been here before and we probably both thought that that was the worst thing that could ever take place between us. We only recovered because we pretended that it didn’t happen. We never mentioned it again. The wet little bodies of the kittens were still lying between us. How heavy they had been when they were dead! Twice the weight of when they were skipping about. But now we were standing over something that could never be forgotten. There wasn’t a carpet big enough to sweep this under.

–  Mary, don’t take on … this is the way it has to be!

–  You lousy bastard. You rotten lousy cowardly bastard! I hate you for this! I hate you! And I hate you for the last time, too! I’ll never forgive you, never!

–  You’d better run on, Frank, you can do no good here, says Bridie.

–  Aye, run on, Frank, run, run, run, run! It’s all you’ve ever done!

I don’t know how I got the words out. I felt like someone had tied a rope around my neck and was pulling, pulling, pulling. He gripped his pipe tight in his teeth as he slammed the tractor door shut and started back up the hill. Bridie helps me off my knees. She manhandles me into the Lower Room and lifts my legs off the floor. I sleep but today is not a good day to sleep because I am already dog-tired. Today is the kind of day when bad dreams just let themselves in and smash the one or two good memories you have hidden to smithereens.