Eamonn! said Marian. Leave her alone. She’s a single girl.

She’ll stay bloody single as well, giving it away for nothing, he said.

Cushla stood to clear the table. I have no privacy, she said.

Eamonn slapped his thigh and laughed. Do youse hear her? he said.

Cushla scraped and rinsed the plates. Eamonn was right. A teacher Cushla trained with had been sacked without a reference after someone wrote anonymously to the bishop that she was living in sin with her boyfriend. The last Cushla heard of her she was working in a shoe shop in Wolverhampton.

She opened the oven to check the crumble she had made with Mr Reid’s rhubarb. It was not quite ready and she returned to the table.

How’s business, Eamonn? said Gina. Cushla’s stomach heaved.

It’s all right if I can keep the wages down, he said.

It’s a nightmare running the place with so few staff, said Marian.

I’m well aware of what the place needs to run, said Gina.

Marian gave Eamonn a meaningful look. He lowered his head and put a forkful of meat in his mouth.

We were hoping you’d be able to help a bit more, Marian said. We never see Eamonn. As if to reinforce it, the girls clambered on to his lap.

I can work more in the summer, said Cushla, but Marian was looking at Gina.

I’ve been doing the cleaning, she said, but it’s hard when the girls haven’t started school. And it’s not going to get any easier.

What does that mean? said Gina.

Marian’s hand hovered at her middle then came to rest on her belly. I should let you tell them, Eamonn.

He had tipped the untouched food from his daughters’ plates on to his and was mashing gravy into a cut potato. Number three’s on the way, he said, his mouth full.

When? said Gina.

End of July.

Gina’s lips twitched with numbers, calculating the dates. Marian was five months gone. They hadn’t told her. She moved her chair back with uncharacteristic dignity and left the kitchen.

From the sitting room, the scratch of the poker in the grate, the clink of bottle against tumbler. Cushla took the crumble from the oven and put it in the centre of the table. Congratulations, she said. You two make nice babies. And they did. The girls were like children from a Victorian Christmas card, all honey-coloured curls and rosy cheeks.

How is she, anyway? said Marian.