assured her mother that Mrs Roberts would take the extra money for herself.
‘No point in your mam thinkin’ she could send you less rent money,’ Roddy said, ignoring Linnet’s objections that her mam would not do anything so unkind. ‘That would put the cat amongst the bleedin’ pigeons, ‘specially if old Ma Roberts couldn’t find no one to take it on. No, chuck, play it safe an’ just mention it, like.’
So Linnet had heeded the advice and gone off to bed satisfied that she had done her best to keep herself – and her mam’s beautiful rooms – safe until Evie’s return. But in the very back of her mind there was a warmness, a security, which had not been there before; if Mammy really did not come back, if she intended to stay in America and did not send Linnet the ticket which, at first, she had promised in every letter, then at least her daughter did have a means to make a living, of sorts. Whilst the rent continued to come regularly she would live in the flat alone, but if prices really did rise, and Mam found herself unable to send more, than she could always sublet, as Mrs Sullivan had called it.
And in the very very back of her mind, where nightmares lurked, Linnet also told herself that if she was ever threatened for living alone, then she would take a lodger, a nice young woman not many years older than herself, who would provide her with the respectability which, she knew, she would lack in the eyes of authority if they knew her mother was away.
Happier in her mind than she had been since her mother’s departure, Linnet slept well that night.
It was about the same time – the Easter holidays after the twins’ fourteenth birthday – Lucy and Caitlin finally discovered who had stolen their fruit cake the previous summer.
After that first visit to the castle, and the mysterious theft, they had decided they would make a point of visiting the old castle at least once a week, and at first they actually did so. But after a couple of visits the curragh wasn’t there, and it did not appear again. After that they went because they enjoyed having a place of their own, one which nobody else knew about, but it gradually palled because it was a long walk, because the marsh grew next to impassable as the summer rains swelled its puddles into small ponds, and because nothing much happened when they went over there.
‘We ought to have gone over in winter, because whoever was living there likely wouldn’t be watching for visitors in winter,’ Lucy remarked on Easter Sunday as they stopped by the gate to the meadows and the marsh. They leaned on the mossy top bar, looking across at the black finger of the tower pointing up at the pale blue sky. ‘What’s more, whoever lives there would have needed a fire, and newly dead fires leave traces . . . oh, why didn’t we go over in the winter?’
But they had not gone because they were busy with other, indoor activities and also because as the weather worsened so the lure of the castle had palled. It no longer seemed mysterious when the rain sheeted across the marsh but just lonely and dilapidated, and when the snow came, and the howling gales, both girls found plenty to occupy them in the old farmhouse with its empty rooms and crowded attics, or in the sheds and barns which abounded around the farmyard.
‘But this holiday, now that we’re fourteen and past, we’ll go back again and do all sorts,’ Caitlin announced. ‘This year, we’ll do all the things we didn’t do last year, starting off by nagging our daddies to make us a curragh of our own.’
‘I don’t have a daddy,’ Lucy reminded her. ‘Is it my grandad you’re meaning?’
‘Yes, of course. I do forget,’ apologised Caitlin. ‘Your grandad will help my daddy to build us a curragh, won’t he?’
‘I doubt it; he’ll say there’s easier ways of gettin’ rid o’ the pair of us than be drowning,’ Lucy said placidly. ‘They’re against boats, the Murphys. They say
‘No point in your mam thinkin’ she could send you less rent money,’ Roddy said, ignoring Linnet’s objections that her mam would not do anything so unkind. ‘That would put the cat amongst the bleedin’ pigeons, ‘specially if old Ma Roberts couldn’t find no one to take it on. No, chuck, play it safe an’ just mention it, like.’
So Linnet had heeded the advice and gone off to bed satisfied that she had done her best to keep herself – and her mam’s beautiful rooms – safe until Evie’s return. But in the very back of her mind there was a warmness, a security, which had not been there before; if Mammy really did not come back, if she intended to stay in America and did not send Linnet the ticket which, at first, she had promised in every letter, then at least her daughter did have a means to make a living, of sorts. Whilst the rent continued to come regularly she would live in the flat alone, but if prices really did rise, and Mam found herself unable to send more, than she could always sublet, as Mrs Sullivan had called it.
And in the very very back of her mind, where nightmares lurked, Linnet also told herself that if she was ever threatened for living alone, then she would take a lodger, a nice young woman not many years older than herself, who would provide her with the respectability which, she knew, she would lack in the eyes of authority if they knew her mother was away.
Happier in her mind than she had been since her mother’s departure, Linnet slept well that night.
It was about the same time – the Easter holidays after the twins’ fourteenth birthday – Lucy and Caitlin finally discovered who had stolen their fruit cake the previous summer.
After that first visit to the castle, and the mysterious theft, they had decided they would make a point of visiting the old castle at least once a week, and at first they actually did so. But after a couple of visits the curragh wasn’t there, and it did not appear again. After that they went because they enjoyed having a place of their own, one which nobody else knew about, but it gradually palled because it was a long walk, because the marsh grew next to impassable as the summer rains swelled its puddles into small ponds, and because nothing much happened when they went over there.
‘We ought to have gone over in winter, because whoever was living there likely wouldn’t be watching for visitors in winter,’ Lucy remarked on Easter Sunday as they stopped by the gate to the meadows and the marsh. They leaned on the mossy top bar, looking across at the black finger of the tower pointing up at the pale blue sky. ‘What’s more, whoever lives there would have needed a fire, and newly dead fires leave traces . . . oh, why didn’t we go over in the winter?’
But they had not gone because they were busy with other, indoor activities and also because as the weather worsened so the lure of the castle had palled. It no longer seemed mysterious when the rain sheeted across the marsh but just lonely and dilapidated, and when the snow came, and the howling gales, both girls found plenty to occupy them in the old farmhouse with its empty rooms and crowded attics, or in the sheds and barns which abounded around the farmyard.
‘But this holiday, now that we’re fourteen and past, we’ll go back again and do all sorts,’ Caitlin announced. ‘This year, we’ll do all the things we didn’t do last year, starting off by nagging our daddies to make us a curragh of our own.’
‘I don’t have a daddy,’ Lucy reminded her. ‘Is it my grandad you’re meaning?’
‘Yes, of course. I do forget,’ apologised Caitlin. ‘Your grandad will help my daddy to build us a curragh, won’t he?’
‘I doubt it; he’ll say there’s easier ways of gettin’ rid o’ the pair of us than be drowning,’ Lucy said placidly. ‘They’re against boats, the Murphys. They say
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