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Daniel paused a moment before saying, `Yes. Yes, Rosie, I've met them. I've been talking to them in the hall.`

`Well, what d'you think?`

He knew he would have to be what was called diplomatic and so he said, Ì don't know, Rosie, I've only just met them.`

`Well, she's been here afore. Did you like her then?`

`Yes, she appeared all right.`

`But what about the other one?`

He smiled as he said, `She's very large.`

Àye, and in the head an' all, I should say, for it appears full of water, like her body. And there's a squad of them due shortly.`

She now came towards him, and in a voice just above a whisper, said, `Has she money? I mean, Miss Conelly; is she bringing money in?`

`Money?` he repeated, recalling the conversation he had just overheard; Ì don't know, Rosie; but I suppose she has money; perhaps when her people die.`

`Live horse an' you'll get grass ...

that! That's what that means.` Rosie 25 flounced back to the table, and after pounding the dough for a few seconds she stopped and, motioning her head towards the bench in the corner of the long kitchen, she said, Ì've made some sly cakes, a couple will never be missed. Take one to Miss Pattie.`

`Pattie's in?`

Òh, aye, she's in. Like you, she's off school for three days. Why, I don't know.`

He picked up the two pieces of pastry filled with currants, saying, `Thank you, Rosie,ànd putting them on a plate, he added, `Where is she ... Rosie?`

`Well, where she always is these days, up in her room or in the nursery.`

`Yes, yes.` He nodded at her before running out and across the hall and up the stairs.

On the landing he paused, undecided whether to make for Pattie's room at the far end or take the stairs that led to the nursery and schoolroom floor, and above them the attics. He decided on the latter and, without ceremony, burst into the old schoolroom to be greeted by Pattie saying, `Why didn't you call?`

`Why should I? You knew it would be me.`

`How was I to know it would be you, silly? I didn't know you were back.`

`Well, you should have been downstairs, then you would have seen me. Here!ànd he smiled as he handed her the sly cake. `Rosie sent that for you.`

She took it from him without offering any thanks and bit into it, and she'd eaten the whole square before he was halfway through his.

`You hungry?`

`Yes, I'm hungry. I didn't have any breakfast.`

`Why?`

`Why? Well, because I didn't want to sit down with my laughing jackass-cum-stepmother, nor sit in the kitchen with her great sloppy maid. And Father said I had to do one or the other, so I did neither.`

`You can't do anything about it, you know.` Daniel said quietly, and as he watched Pattie lean against the table, the while gripping its edge, there came in him again that feeling for her that saddened him, and he didn't like it, so he looked from her to the table and the scraps of paper spread out and asked her, `What are you doing?` 27

She straightened up and now asked him a question; her voice eager, she said, `Can you recall any of Father's friends who have the nickname of Barbie?`

He thought for a moment, then said, `Barbie? Sounds like a girl's name. Short for something? No: there are the Talbots, but Mrs Talbot's called Lilian, isn't she? And then there's Frances. Mrs Farringdon, she's called Tessa, and there's Janie. But why do you ask?`

`Look`--she pointed now to the table, and he leant over and looked at the pieces of torn and charred paper, and with a stabbing finger she pointed to the signature still evident on one piece, and said, `What does that read?Ànd he, looking closer, said, `Barbie. But this is a letter. And why all these bits?`

`Yes`--she was nodding at him--`why all these bits? Why all these letters? There were a number of them.

I happened to go into the study one night this week and Father was burning papers in the grate and he asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted a book. And he said, "Well, get it and go." And I went. But I waited until he came out and had gone upstairs; then I went back, and there was all this charred paper, with here and there unburnt bits.` She now stabbed her finger at the pieces of what had evidently been a letter, and went on, `They're not all of the same letter. But look, three times there's the same name, "Barbie". There's only half the signature on that piece, it says, "Bar", but look, it's the same kind of writing as this complete one, "Barbie". And see, on that piece of paper it says, "You can't". And over there--` she now pointed to a small piece of paper about an inch long and her fingers stabbed out the words, "Years and years". And look at this piece.` With her other hand now she turned over a strip of charred paper that showed an uneven white line where the tops of letters had been burnt off. And she said to him, `What d'you make of that?`

He looked closely at the paper, and then he said, Òh, I think that word is "time", but I can't make out the rest.Ànd she said, Ì can. That is "if".Ànd to this he nodded: Òh, yes, it could be.`

Ànd the next word is, "ever".`

`You're just guessing,` he said. 29

`No. Look!ànd now taking a pencil, she pulled a piece of clean paper towards her and wrote èveròn it.

He nodded, saying, `Could be.`

`Well,` she said, ìt looks as though it reads, "if ever the time came."`

He scrutinised the charred scrap again and said, `Perhaps you're right. But even so, what does it mean?

What do you make of it?`

She turned and leant against the side of the table and, looking straight at him, she said, `Why should Father be burning those letters? Mother's name was Janice. The one downstairs, her name is Moira.

Who, I ask you, is or was Barbie?`

He smiled now, saying, `Don't ask me, Pattie. It's you who have set a puzzle, but I can't see you working it out.`

Ì ... I will some day.`

His face straight now and his voice low, he said, `Why are you so bitter against Father? You said before that you talked at him because you want him to take notice of you. Well, if you do, why are you bitter?`

She shook her head twice before she said, Ì suppose it's because Mother was bitter against him.`

`Mother? Bitter against Father?`

`Yes`--she was bending down to him, her face now thrust into his--`Mother was bitter against Father.

You know nothing, you're a fathead.`

Ì am not a fathead, and don't call me a fathead.`

That she was surprised at his retaliation was evident, for now she almost apologised, saying to him,

`Well, you know I didn't mean "fathead" really. But, you see, Daniel, you've been away at school for more than two years now. You were just turned seven when he packed you off, and you know nothing about what's happened in the meantime. I missed you when you went to school. Do you know that?`

When he didn't answer she said, `You will be ten and I'll be fourteen in December, and you know what I'm going to do next year?`

`Leave school. You'll have to, won't you?`

`No, I'm not; and I won't. I'm ... I'm going to pupil-teach, starting with the infants. Miss Brooker said I can.`

Ì thought you said Miss Brooker was 31 a thickhead; that she didn't know anything.`

`Well`--Pattie hunched her shoulders-- `she knows I know as much as her, I suppose.`

`Does Father know?`

`Not yet.`

`Do you think he'll let you?`

`He'll have to.`

Òh, Pattie.` He smiled sadly at her. `You know you can't make Father do anything that he doesn't want to do.`

`No, perhaps not me, but his new wife will because she won't want me under her feet all day. I'll make myself felt right from the start, so she'll be glad to get rid of me. Oh, she'll back me up; I'll see to that.`

He laughed, saying, `You know, Pattie, you're a terror. If you had been a man, you're the kind that would have caused riots.`

`Very likely.` She nodded at him. Ànd I wish I had been a man, because then I wouldn't have to go and put linen on the four guest beds.`

`How many are coming?`

`Well, as far as I know, her mother and father,

two brothers and their wives, and a great aunt.`

Àre they staying long?`

`No, thank the Lord, only tonight; then they're taking the late train to the boat after the wedding.`

`But why are they leaving it so late when Father's being married at eleven in the morning?`

Ìt's cheaper travelling that way, so Rosie says.`

`How did she know that?`

`Well, don't you know that Rosie's half Irish? Her mother was Irish. Oh.` She now turned to the table again and carefully gathered the pieces of charred paper together, adding, `They are spattered all over the country, the Irish. Miss Brooker said that, when I told her my father was marrying a lady from Ireland. What she actually said was, "More of them? They're already spattered all over the country."

Come on, help me with the sheets. But mind`--she stopped abruptly on her way to the door--`don't tell Father anything about this,ànd she pointed to the envelope containing the remains of the letters. And his tone held indignation as he answered her, `Now why should I do that? What reason would I have?`

`Well, you never know; things slip out.`

`You won't get it out of your head that 33 I'm a dumb-bell, will you?`

She pushed him and gave one of her rare laughs in which he now joined and they went out together.

Daniel sat on the deep window-ledge of the third window in the long dining-room and his eyes darted from one to the other of his future stepmother's family, and the only words he could call to mind with which to describe them were odd and different.

There was Moira's father. He was tallish and thin, very thin and very dark-haired and, like his daughter, he laughed a lot, and he never seemed to stop talking. His wife seemed about half his size but her figure was dumpy. She too was dark, and her face was lined. She looked old. She smiled a lot but she didn't laugh and she spoke only now and again. Then there was a brother named Brian. He was as tall as his father and very like him, and he, too, talked a lot, but he didn't laugh, nor did he even smile. Apparently, they called his wife Mary, because he alluded to her often, saying, Mary here said so and so. And Mary, too, talked a lot. Yet the younger son-- Moira said he was younger, although he looked almost like a twin to his brother--this son was called Rory, and his wife's name was Bertha, and they stood out because they rarely spoke. And then there was the great aunt. Now she was very odd and so old that he couldn't remember having seen anyone quite as old. Yet she was what you would call spritely, for he had watched her previously walking around the room fingering the pieces of silver on the sideboard and opening the drawers of the old chest at the end of the room where the best dinner service was kept, together with the trays of cutlery. And what stood out was that everybody seemed to adhere to her wishes. They plied her with the eatables from the table and, as did all the others, she ate as if she hadn't seen food for days.

His father kept putting plates in Pattie's hands and directing her to offer their contents to the guests, but he felt he needn't have bothered because Maggie Ann, as everybody called her, was doing that all the time.

His father had seen to the drinks, too, but the company seemed to pick only two kinds, beer or whisky, and they drank a lot of each, seeming to wash the food down with it.

Although his father kept moving about the room from one

guest to another, Daniel knew that he 35 wasn't at ease.

They had been eating for more than an hour when Moira suggested they should move to the drawing-room. She did it, as he was finding out, as she seemingly did everything, on a laugh and with a funny quip; standing in the middle of the room, she called, `Would the remnants of the Conelly family of ancient lineage follow their daughter over the battlements to rest their bones in the luxury of the drawing-room.Àt this and amid joined laughter she held out her hand to his father and he led her down the room, out into the hall and across it to the drawing-room door, where, relinquishing her hand, he pressed her forward into the room, then stood aside while Sean Conelly and his wife, with their aged aunt between them, passed him with a smile. Then followed the dour Brian with his wife, and lastly Rory and his wife.

But when Maggie Ann came up in the rear and intent on joining the family, he put out an arm to block her way and, inclining his head towards her, he said, `Would you please see to the coffee?`

The smile slid from her face and she replied

briefly, `They don't take coffee; tea's their drink when they can't get anything else.`

He brought his jaws together for a moment before allowing himself to speak: then under his breath he said, Àll right, it will be tea. But listen one moment: you and I must have a talk, you understand?`

She stared into his face. She understood, but she made no reply. Swinging her large body about, she made for the kitchen, pushing aside Daniel and Pattie who had been making their way towards the stairs but were stopped by their father's voice saying firmly, `Come!`

Reluctantly, it seemed, they moved towards him, and as they went to pass him he stooped and quietly but firmly he said, `Remember your manners and who you are. We have guests in the house. You understand?`

Neither of them answered nor indicated by a nod that they understood, but they went forward and into a buzz of laughter and chatter ...

Daniel did not know how much later it was when the argument started, only that it was long after they had drunk tea and further glasses of whisky had been passed around. It started with the man called Brian saying, `When you used to come across to us,

Hector, you gave us the impression that you 37 lived like landed gentry, and her there, our Moira, she did the same. Well, you've got the house all right, an' the settings for it, but where's the staff? I thought we'd be greeted to a dinner tonight and be meeting all your friends.`

`Shut your mouth! Shut your mouth, Brian. It always gapes wide after the hard stuff. You should keep off it. Aye, you should that, unless it's under your own roof.`