Carriglas, August 26th, 1931. I remained in the drawingroom, alone, when it was late. The tweed of the jacket I repaired was brown with flecks of grey in it, harsh between my fingers, a smell of the farmyard still adhering to it. Its pockets had been pulled out of shape, two buttons missing, a seam undone at the shoulders. My lips dampened the thread in preparation for the needle’s eye, and then the needle slipped away beneath the pressure of my thimble, the grey thread drawing back and forth. For a moment I seemed to hear again Miss de Ryal’s Schubert pieces although Miss de Ryal had been gone for hours. ‘What a day it’s been, Sarah!’ he said an hour ago, and for a moment I thought he was going to say something else, but he did not.

8. Carriglas in Autumn

There was an accident at the bridge. A steel girder, being passed into place, escaped the grasp of two of the men who hoisted it, and fell heavily upon a third man, trapping him beneath it. When the weight was lifted from him the man was found to have injuries to the shoulder and a thigh, later diagnosed, as shattered bones. Work was suspended while his companions awaited the arrival of a doctor, who ordered the construction of a stretcher and the removal of the injured man from the site. The foreman had known accidents before; a bridge was rarely built without one. He drove the lorry in the back of which three men held the stretcher steady, raised between wooden blocks. Half a day’s work was lost but when, that same afternoon, the engineer who had designed the bridge stood discussing its progress with the county council surveyor, they nodded over the half-completed construction, well pleased with the progress that had been made. They walked together to the foreman’s shed and consulted him. By December—before Christmas, or at least by the end of the year—there would be traffic on the bridge, he guaranteed. Ever since the work had begun he’d said so, whenever he felt a promise was expected of him.