She thought, too, of her friend Charlotte and the collection of cowrie shells they had amassed, and of the small wooden box Charlotte had found in her father’s schoolhouse. The box had once contained chalks. The two girls had polished it up and made it a thing of touching beauty by gluing the shells to the lid. It had been this little object that Aisling had offered as a parting gift to Miss Maeve and Miss Elizabeth McKinnon when the time for her return to Dublin came round, and they, who had been holding back their tears, had let them fall onto the children’s gift.

Aisling had tried to tell her parents about the great sea strand and the sight of sunlight on the thrilling waves, about the paintings hanging on the walls of the cottage, about the picnics Miss Maeve never tired of preparing and about Iris, with her soft ears and her pleading eyes. But Michael and Kathleen never seemed to want to listen to any of this. All they talked about was the imminent arrival of their son – whom they had already named Liam – in December. ‘He will be born just in time for Christmas,’ they told the girl they now referred to as their middle child, ‘so you see, Aisling, we must give all our thought to how we can make him welcome. And we believe you should play an unselfish part in this. We have discussed what you might do and we have decided that Liam should have his own room for his little crib. He must not be disturbed in the night. Babies need a lot of rest. So we will move your bed into the parlour and you can sleep there. You will have your tea with us when your father gets home and go to bed when he decrees. You will grow used to the lateness of the hour.’

So this was to be it, then: her new brother would share the room with the ghost of Maire and she would share the parlour with the china cupboard and the mice and be forced to stay awake while her father drank stout after supper. Perhaps Maire’s old toys, which she had never been allowed to touch, would be given to Liam? He would grow up in the soft embrace of his mother’s arms. His father would work overtime at the Anchor Brewery to buy good food for his boy. In his quavering voice, ruined by the chewing of tobacco, Michael Morrissey would sing to his only son …

When the time for the birth approached and Aisling saw her bed shoved into the parlour, so near to the burning grate that she feared she might catch fire in the middle of the night, she wrote a letter to her aunt:

Dear Aunt Clorinda,

Please, I beg you, come and take me back to Miss Maeve and Miss Elizabeth. Please, please, please, please. Charlotte told me I could attend the school which her father has and learn my lessons there. Please, please, please come. My bed has gone into the parlour because my brother is coming. I am burning by the coals and there will be nothing for me at Christmas and I am missing Iris so much.

If you do not come, I will die.

From your niece, Aisling xx