Mothers and Sons by Colm Tóibín Page B

must be the first to speak now, that she had forced him to avert his eyes. She sensed his regret at what he had said.
    ‘So is that what Fianna Fáil does? Puts widows out of business?’
    ‘Now, Nancy.’ He put up his hand.
    ‘Is that what it does, Ned?’
    ‘Nancy, you opened without planning permission and you consulted nobody.’
    ‘You’ll have trouble if you try and close me down, Ned.’
    ‘Nancy, it isn’t up to us.’
    ‘Oh, is it not? Who’s the government, then? Who runs the county council and the urban district council?’
    ‘You can’t ride roughshod over the law, Nancy.’
    ‘Can you not? What law gave the car park to Dunne’s Stores? I’d say that took courage, Ned.’
    She realized as soon as she said it that she had gone too far. He now had the advantage and he held it, nodding to himself silently, looking worried. The Sheridans had always supported Fine Gael; she knew that he knew that. He was aware of everyone’s allegiance. But Fine Gael had no power now; all the power was in the hands of Fianna Fáil.
    Quickly, she found the letters from the bank outlining the extent of her debts and the letter from the bank’s solicitor threatening her. She handed them to him. He took his glasses from the breast pocket of his shirt and read the letters. Nancy, watching him, thought she was the same age as Ned; she remembered that he had left school when he was very young and wondered how he had managed to run Fianna Fáil in the town, becoming even more powerfulthan any of the elected politicians. For a second, she thought to ask George, who would always know these things, forgetting that he was dead.
    ‘Oh, Nancy,’ Ned said, ‘how did you get yourself into this mess?’
    ‘Look at the date of the first letter, Ned. George left only debts, and his mother was the one who signed the forms. So it was the Sheridans who left the mess. George left me with three children and huge debts.’
    She had never thought of it as starkly before, but she knew now that the bluntness of her statement was more effective than tears.
    ‘Are there no assets? No investments or savings?’ Ned asked.
    ‘Nothing, except what’s in that letter.’
    ‘You could sell.’
    ‘The debt is more than the value of the property.’
    ‘Yes, but since it’s a debt to the bank, they would make a deal on it.’
    ‘And what would I do then, Ned, where would I live?’
    He handed her back the letters.
    ‘So what do you want me to do?’ he asked her.
    ‘Tell them to back off.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Tell the planning man and the health man to leave me alone, and tell the merchants in the square, as you call them, the truth. Ask them if they would like to have me on the street, because that’s where I’ll be. Instead of the litter, it’ll be me.’
    ‘It’s a lot to ask, Nancy,’ he said.
    She was on the point of telling him that it had beendone before, but she knew to say nothing now, play poor and humble.
    ‘Well, I’m out on the side of the road with three children,’ she said sadly.
    ‘Give me a few days,’ he said, ‘but I can promise nothing. You should have consulted us before you opened.’
    She could not contain herself.
    ‘Sure I know what you would have said.’
    She stood up.
    When he opened the door for her, he hesitated in the hall for a moment.
    ‘Still, despite all the troubles,’ he said, ‘the country’s come far, haven’t we, Nancy, I mean we’ve come a long way.’
    This stayed in her mind for days as his way of saying that he would help her. The implication, she thought, was that Ned and she both had been born in houses which knew nothing about banks or solicitors or planning permissions, and now they were freely discussing these matters. This had to be progress, especially, she thought, if something could be arranged.
    A WEEK LATER , he came to tell her that he could help her, but it would have to be done carefully and quietly. She was to apply for planning permission and, if it was refused, she