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Back Trespasses Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. COVER
  2. HALF-TITLE PAGE
  3. BY THE SAME AUTHOR
  4. DEDICATION PAGE
  5. TITLE PAGE
  6. 2015
  7. THE IRISH FOR NO
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. 4
  12. 5
  13. 6
  14. DÚIL
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. 9
  18. 10
  19. 11
  20. 12
  21. CHIAROSCURO
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. IN CALVARY’S FLOW
  29. 19
  30. 20
  31. 21
  32. 22
  33. 23
  34. 24
  35. WHEN I MOVE TO THE SKY
  36. 25
  37. 26
  38. 27
  39. 28
  40. 29
  41. 30
  42. 2015
  43. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  44. A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

I appear to be jealous, he said. An unhelpful development.

I never know where you are or what you’re doing. So I won’t be getting myself to a nunnery any time soon.

I’m sorry.

Good, she said, and hung up.

Upstairs, she pushed her mother’s door. The radio wasn’t tuned in properly and was emitting a fuzzy hiss. She crossed the room and switched it off.

You’re back early, said Gina, making her jump.

Jesus. You scared the shite out of me. Why were you lying in the dark listening to that horrible noise?

I didn’t notice. Eamonn rang. He likes Gerry.

Everybody likes Gerry. He’s likeable.

He said Michael Agnew was there, in shocking bad form. Herself mustn’t be well again. Joanna Butler, she said, putting on a brogue.

Cushla felt as though she’d been punched. Siobhán de Buitléar was his wife. Do you know her? she said.

I used to. She wouldn’t be in circulation, if you know what I mean.

I don’t know what you mean.

The nerves, I told you before. Any wonder, married to him.

What’s wrong with him?

Fond of the women, by all accounts. Sure he’d charm the knickers off you.

Cushla spotted cigarettes on the bedside table, hidden behind a lamp. She snatched them away. I’m going to bed, she said.

The phone rang a few other times as well, said Gina. When I got to it no one was there.

Kids messing, said Cushla, kissing her mother’s cheek. Night, Mummy.

In her bedroom, she lifted the window sash. Splinters of paint tinkled on to the sill. She sat on it to smoke a cigarette. A car passed the house in a fizz of rain, disappearing around the bend towards the hills. Somewhere out that road, a woman who had once signed her name in girlish cló gaelach was with a man who used her old schoolbooks to make other women want to sleep with him.

11

11

The Secretary of State says the recent spate of killings in the west of the city is part of an internal Republican feud and insists the IRA truce is still in place.

The Protestant Action Force has claimed responsibility for the shooting dead of two men in a bar in the New Lodge area.

‘Bye Bye Baby’ is still number one.

My daddy’s getting better, said Davy. The others were taking out their books and did not appear to have heard.