I don’t mind how long went by, I suppose it was just a couple of days, but it felt like longer. Just waiting and waiting. Mummy Joy and Mummy Noreen were acting odd. They were upset, always whispering one to the other. Always close. And remembering, always remembering things from the outside. I liked that, hearing about out there, hearing about Belfast and Armagh, and all the people they knew.

Things went bad for them, that was what they had in common. Both of them had wound up on the street. Mummy Noreen was born in a workhouse. Born out of wedlock. That was a terrible thing in them days, a terrible shame to hang over you, though I suppose it doesn’t matter so much nowadays. Mummy Noreen’s mother lived in the workhouse in Belfast because she was a . . . I don’t like to use the word. She went with men for money. I suppose it was hard times, right enough, but still. Mummy Noreen always carried that with her, knowing her father was some boy who gave her mother a lock of shillings so he could do his business with her.

But they were upset, and talking more about the outside than they used to, and I was worried and scared too. But I was excited. And you know, I think deep inside them, even though neither of them would say it out loud, I think they were excited too. Maybe they felt ashamed of that. I know I did. Being excited that someone new was coming to suffer the same as us, sure that’s nothing to be excited about, is it? But all the same, I was.

That was why they talked so much about the outside. Because the outside was coming in, and they wanted to know what had changed and what had stayed the same. To see someone new from out there.

Two days, maybe, I’m not sure. They dragged on and we kept working, Mummy Noreen doing the best she could with only one good hand, her broken fingers still twined together with the stick Mummy Joy had taken from one of my dollies. The Daddies were acting strange too. You could see the excitement in them, but they felt no shame in it. And they wanted the place shining, top to bottom. They never worked us so hard before or after.