‘The reason I’ve come in is that I wanted to say that I’d be… most grateful if you could keep an eye on Mother. If anything should ever happen to me, Mr Rafter.’

The grocer’s clever eyes seemed to join the ranks of all those who could read my intentions.

‘And what could happen to you, Iz?’ he asked quietly.

‘I don’t expect anything to happen. It’s just that, well you’ve always been such a friend, I thought that if…’

He ran his hand over his face and rubbed his nose vigorously. ‘Your father and I were the best of friends. We’d talk about history and how each of us had got to where we were. We knew the changes that were coming, we just didn’t know when.’

‘Mother wants to go back to England. Now that the war is nearly over, she’ll soon be able to.’

‘We’ll all be sorry to see her go.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Rafter. I’m meeting someone, I’ve got to rush,’ I said, cursing myself for having come in.

‘Ah, you were always the best of them as far as I was ever concerned,’ he said and walked with me to the door. ‘But you’re far too young to be worrying.’

‘I know, ‘I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

He held the door for me. I could feel his eyes on my neck as I resumed my journey through Tirmon.


The bull-nose Morris sat like a small, dogged animal at the far side of the village, a little wisp of white steam drifting from its bonnet. I ran the final fifty yards.

‘Another minute and I was gone,’ said Tom King.

We lurched away, dust behind us.

‘Is Frank all right?’

‘He’s fine,’ Tom said and looked in his rear-view mirror. ‘Everything will be fine.’

We drove for an hour, weaving back and forth through the lattice of tiny roads, gradually working south and then east, before meeting the north-south main road into Dublin. Tom had booked a cabin and two tickets in his own name on the mail boat to Holyhead that would sail that evening from Dún Laoghaire. Frank and Tom had spent the night before in the Dublin Mountains. Tom shook his head, as if trying to come to terms with the starkness and finality of the day. ‘These are queer old times, aren’t they?’ he said.

‘Did you hear that the Russians are heading for Berlin?’ I asked.

‘It’s a good omen,’ Tom said.

On the outskirts of Dublin, people were in their front gardens, digging or weeding.

‘Can I ask you something?’ I said. ‘Why did Alice do what she did? She took months out of our lives. Why? If she hadn’t, I’d never have agreed to marry another man, Frank and I would have gone away and by now we’d be free in England instead of being in danger here. Why did she do it?’

Tom’s big chin sank into his chest and he gripped the steering wheel.

‘It wasn’t her, it was history. It was years of resentment and difference, it was people long dead whose blood is your blood. It was about wanting and having and greed. She saw her chance and she took it. With some people, it’s beyond their control. She’d probably have liked you, you know. ‘

‘I can’t understand it.’

‘You don’t have to understand it,’ Tom said. ‘Frank tells me you have a sister much the same.’

Old, bowler-hatted men sat on a canal bank in the sun, and beneath them, on the water, swans glided, their hinged reflections perfect. Trams veered around St Stephen’s Green. Tom parked, nose in, and we walked together down Grafton Street. The billheads for the evening paper shouted, WAR SOON OVER! Metal wheels hummed on their tracks and bells clanged. Tom looked back over his shoulder more than once. We turned into Wicklow Street. I longed for Frank. Childbirth would be like this, I knew, pain bearable because of love. I went in through the Wicklow Hotel’s revolving doors, and then through its homely hall, hat drawn over my eyes, past the panelled dining-room with its white-jacketed waiters setting up for dinner, past the staircase up which we had gone together so often and so happily, and into the busy bar at the back. He was sitting in a booth near the door to the toilets, his face drawn and pale.

‘I thought you’d never come.’

I began to kiss him, not minding who was watching. I covered his face in kisses and he held me close and said, ‘It’s all right.’

I knew then, if ever I had been in doubt, that I loved him completely, for love, I understood, won’t settle for anything less than its full entitlement. Tom handed him an envelope with the boat tickets.

‘What time does she sail?’ Frank asked.

‘Eight,’ said Tom.

‘We don’t want to go on board until the last minute,’ Frank said.

Tom went to the bar and I found myself checking the clock over the counter.

Frank asked, ‘What did you tell them at home?’

‘Nothing. They think I’ll be there for supper,’ I said and had a sudden, guilty image of Mother sitting, waiting for me.

‘That must have been difficult for you.’

I looked at him and saw in his eyes what I had seen the first night.

‘It’s for the best,’ I said. ‘I’m just bringing forward what would have happened anyway.’

Tom came back with whiskies and we swallowed them.

‘I think we should get out to Dún Laoghaire,’ Tom said. ‘The car is up on the Green.’

‘You two go first,’ Frank said. ‘I’ll meet you at the car in five minutes.’

I stood up and then, before I reached the door, looked back. The whiskey had brought some colour to his cheeks. He winked at me. I winked back. I went out the hall for the street, striding ahead, my chest filled with hope. And I saw Nick.

I turned, colliding with Tom.

‘Tell Frank to get out!’ I hissed.

I faced the street again.

‘Iz, what are you doing here?’ Nick asked.

‘What do you mean? What are you doing? You’re meant to be on a picnic.’

‘Iz, please…’

I saw the two men: in long coats and slouch hats, they stood on the far side of the street by the windows of Switzers.

‘Are you following me, Nick?’

‘Iz, I’m your brother-in-law, I care for you. So does Bella. We all care for you very much.’

‘So much so that you see fit to follow me.’

‘We know what’s going on,’ Nick said. ‘Listen, please. This is not easy for either of us.’

I could see the men glancing up and down the street.

Nick said, ‘None of this is your fault. But what is important is that you don’t do something extremely stupid.’

I looked defiantly at him. ‘I’ll do exactly as I please,’ I said and reached back, for I knew Tom was now behind me, and linked my arm through his. ‘Come on, darling.’

Nick’s face was full of puzzlement.

‘What are you looking at?’ Tom asked him and we walked arm in arm down Wicklow Street.


Every pair of eyes on the footpath of Grafton Street and from the trams seemed to be for us alone.

‘Where is Frank?’ I whispered, walking fast, holding on to Tom as if to life.

‘He’s got out through the toilets,’ Tom said, teeth gritted. ‘He’s going to meet us in Dún Laoghaire.’

I almost had to run to keep apace as we reached the top of Grafton Street.

‘Get in,’ Tom said.

He went to the front, swung the handle and the old car shuddered to life in a cloud of soot. We reversed out and then lurched around the corner, up the Green, crossing the intersection into Harcourt Street at speed.

‘Damn!’ Tom swore.

I looked behind. We were already half-way up Harcourt Street but at the bottom end I could see a big, boxy four-door saloon with prominent headlamps sway around the corner from the Green.

‘What are we going to do?’

‘We’re going to lead these fellas a right old spin,’ Tom said.

I could not bear to imagine that Mr Rafter had gone straight up to Longstead and alerted them to my behaviour, or that Nick and Bella would have me pursued like a thief rather than allow me my happiness; but for the past few months, I had lived in the realm of the unimaginable and this was little different. We crossed the canal bridge and came to fields of cattle. Tom forced the car to its maximum speed down a long, straight road. Little activity disturbed the village of Rathmines. We lurched through two bends, then climbed the tree-lined incline for Rathgar. The saloon was a confidant fifty yards behind and, compared to us, moving easily.

‘They may not know Frank was in the hotel,’ Tom said. ‘They may think we still have to meet him.’

We plunged downhill and along by the Dodder River. It was past four o’clock. Boys kicked a football at one end of a field in which cows were ambling home for milking. The dying sun still warmed one side of the street in the village of Rathfarnham. Church bells rang. I wondered what church we would marry in, and who would be there, or if the troubles — that persistent word that meant so much — would always mean our having to live somewhere other than in Ireland. In open country, the car began to slow against the foothills of the Dublin Mountains. Behind us, the saloon reduced its speed to match. Tom pulled out his watch. He said,

‘The way I see it, the farther we drive, the longer the car behind will follow us and the safer it will be for Frank to catch the sailing.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s safe as long as they stay behind us.’

‘And what do I do?’

Tom’s big head was down. ‘You could join him later.’

‘How will I find him?’

‘He’ll contact me like he did before.’

We were now back on tiny winding roads barely wider than the car.

‘Can’t you go faster?’

‘I can try, but every five minutes we go is another five minutes to the boat.’

The car groaned with every new mile. I didn’t need to look back any more. I had something unique I could give him — his freedom. For by keeping on, by leading them after us, Frank would board the boat unharmed. I began to shake. I could not bear to think of losing him again.

‘Damn it!’ Tom swore as thick steam began to rise from the car’s stubby radiator. He threw the Morris around the next bend, and the one after, and the old chassis creaked. The road was potholed and the uncut hedges scraped its sides. Tom wrestled the wheel and the engine whined. On a straight stretch it appeared, for a moment, that we might have lost our pursuers, but then the saloon loomed into view, steadied, and with ease made up the difference it had lost. A steep downhill appeared. Tom aimed the car at the bottom without caution. The air was sucked from us as we dived. We’d reached the hill’s base before the saloon had appeared at the top.

‘Do you think we can shake them off?’

‘Are you religious?’ Tom asked, sweat on his face. ‘Because if you are, this would be a good time to say a prayer.’

The radiator steam now made it difficult to see. A bend came up and we swung into it. Then another. The car seemed to career without purpose. I saw ditches head on, then, road, then a bend so sharp there seemed no way out of it. We scraped through. An ass-cart appeared in the centre of the road as if dropped there from the sky. We veered madly, striking one of its shafts as we passed.

‘Christ!’ Tom shouted.

The Morris slewed out of control, hitting both ditches. I saw the cart including its driver and the donkey, tilt over into the crown of the road. The Morris swerved on, sickeningly, then ploughed along the ditch and with a great bang, stopped.

‘Tom?’

Eels of blood wriggled down Tom’s face. The braying of the upturned animal behind seemed to be the only sound. Then there was the roar of a powerful engine and brakes that screamed even louder than the ass. I looked back in time to see the saloon hit donkey and cart full square, spin once, then crash nose first into the stone pier of a gate.

I got out. Tom climbed out my side.

‘Push,’ he said.

I got into the ditch behind the Morris, but I doubt that my efforts had any effect. I was aware that the saloon car now lacked most of its front section and that the donkey, feet to heaven, was dead. A man, the one who had been on the cart, lay inert in the ditch. Groans came from inside the saloon.

‘Come on!’ Tom urged, red drops glistening on the tip of his chin and his nose.

I was ankle deep in muck. Tom got an inch on the back of the Morris, then another. Veins stood out massively at his temples. The car moved up, but then fell back and I sat down heavily.

‘Come on!’

I scrambled up and we pushed again. I felt possessed of strength beyond reason. All at once, the car sprang from the wet hole into which it had fallen. Tom dug deeper with his shoulder and kept pushing until the four wheels were on the hard road.