She heard voices ahead of her outside the betting shop, among them one she recognised. She looked, and her heart beat as fast as a train because Jimmy was standing with a group of young men and two girls in the doorway.

‘Come on, lads, I’m closing now; you’ve got your winnings so have a good night,’ said the man who ran the shop as he locked the door. The group began to walk towards her with Jimmy in front. This was her moment! Now he would see her… He was talking to the man next to him but, as he came alongside and looked straight at her, his name stuck in her throat. Jimmy’s brow furrowed; he thought for a second and then recognised her just as one of the girls ran alongside him and linked her arm through his.

‘Are you going to spend your winnings on me now, Jimmy?’ she asked.

With a sheepish grimace towards Mary, Jimmy raised the peak of his cap before turning to the girl on his arm and kissing her full on the lips then saying loudly, so that Mary heard every word, ‘You’re my girl, aren’t you? Of course I am.’

Chapter Eighteen

Peggy delivered her baby in seven minutes and, throughout the process, she called for the only women in her life who had ever cared for her or shown her any love: her mother first, her grandmother who had raised her in her early years in Ireland, then Maura and finally, in a cry of desperation, her husband.

‘Paddy, Paddy, come home!’ she gasped as the rising moonlight lit the dark cobbled yard. The stale air of the outhouse, disturbed and shaken by her panting and anguished gasps, felt cold on her hot skin, as violent tremors racked her body, but she felt no pain, just a burning urgency to be somewhere safe.

‘Mam, Mam, Nan,’ she gasped but there was no response from her long-dead relatives. No matter how much they had loved her in life, they were of no use in death. Peggy felt their presence in her heart, thought she saw Kitty as a cool hand passed across her burning brow, but there was no one there, no hand to grasp onto, no one to hold her upright, no Maura whispering, ‘Hang on, Peggy, we’re almost there.’