LITMIR.BIZ

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      He had been dying to tell them all day. But, also dying for his tea, he had saved his announcement for later, as one might reserve the best bit on one’s plate until last. Now replete, Niall Doran gave a little groan of satisfaction, a leisurely stretch, and prepared to regale his family. Then he remembered what day it was.

      Perhaps this was not the time for frivolity. His thoughtful blue eyes moved to the fireplace, half expecting still to see the old Yorkshire range, but that had been ripped out weeks ago and replaced by a modern one with shiny beige tiles. Upon its mantelpiece, twixt two posies of flowers, stood a soldier’s photograph. Today marked the eighteenth anniversary of Brendan’s death; killed one week after his birthday on the Somme in 1916, forever twenty-five. Twenty-five, thought Niall with a mental shake of head – why, even the blasted sideboard had been allowed to survive more years than that! Without turning his head, he felt its dark presence. It seemed to glare at him, as if knowing he had always hated it – this heavily carved Jacobean-style monstrosity that took up an entire wall, its funereal bulk alleviated only by scraps of white lacework and the photographs of his children at their confirmation. Having his mother-in-law living here was oppressive enough, without putting up all her old-fashioned stuff too. It felt like a blasted funeral parlour …

      Still, he noted, the occupants of the household didn’t appear overly sombre. From the front room came the sound of female muttering: his wife, Ellen, her younger sisters, Harriet and Dolly, and their sixty-five-year-old mother having converged there a few moments ago, probably to spy on some neighbour, as women were prone to do. But Niall would soon have them pricking up their ears.

      ‘You’ll never guess what I saw today,’ his deep Yorkshire voice called teasingly, ‘not even in a million years.’

      Seated at the table alongside him in the living room of their small terraced house, five brown-haired, blue-eyed children waited expectantly.

      ‘A wolf!’ came their father’s grandiose announcement.

      Whilst his offspring gasped in awe, only a half-amused reply came from the other room. ‘I thought they were extinct in this country?’ Ellen remarked.

      ‘Obviously not, for I saw one today with me own eyes!’ Niall sounded pleased with himself.

      ‘You know what happened to the boy who cried wolf,’ jeered Nora Beasty, his mother-in-law, her concentration still fixed on the street beyond the window.

      ‘I’m not having you on!’ objected Niall, with a laugh. ‘I swear I saw it.’ And he began to recount today’s adventure on the country line, all five children leaning on the table, their pixie-like faces holding him with rapt attention – the girls, Honora and Judith, with their delicate bone structure, the youngest, Brian, too, whilst the remaining pair of boys were more robust – all paying respectful heed. ‘I’d just chased an old moorjock off the line—’

      ‘What’s a moorjock, Dad?’ interrupted Bartholomew, a rascally-looking five-year-old.

      ‘It’s a sheep, Batty – and I were bending down with me spanner to tighten a crossover rod, and I looked up and there was Mr Wolf, jogging across the line as bold as brass!’ His thrill conveyed to the children, Niall delighted in watching them hang on his every word. There came a display of excitement from the women too, but not because of anything Niall had said.

      ‘See! I told you – he’s off to meet a woman!’ declared Nora, her flint-like eyes piercing the lace curtain and following the suspect’s passage up the terrace.

      The three younger females, who craned their necks beside their mother, gave angry murmurs of agreement. Then one of the disembodied voices manifested itself: Dolly thrusting her toothy, unattractive face round the brown varnished jamb to summon her brother-in-law. ‘Go after him, Nye, and see where he’s off.’

      ‘Who, in God’s name?’ He showed slight exasperation, which was mirrored by his informant.

      ‘Your Sean!’

      ‘Spy on my own brother? That’s a bit devious.’ But Niall had turned grim, annoyed as much that his own bit of glory had been spoiled as over his brother’s purported wrongdoing, though he spared a warm and grateful smile for his eldest, who removed his empty plate and brought him the evening newspaper.

      ‘There’s your press, Dad.’

      ‘By, you’re a good lass – thanks, Honor.’ He touched her affectionately. Quiet and conscientious like her father, the eleven-year-old merely smiled back, as Niall raised his voice again for the benefit of those in the parlour. ‘Anyhow, he said he’s off to play billiards with a chap from work!’

      This drew sounds of faint contempt from the other room, his mother-in-law’s answer relaying a sneer. ‘I heard what he said, but you don’t get dressed up like he is to knock a few balls about – and he couldn’t look us in the eye when he said it. It’s a woman, I’m telling you.’

      ‘It’d bloody well better not be or I’ll flatten him.’ Despite the Irish name and facial characteristics, the Celtic knick-knacks and shamrock-laden, proverb-bearing plaques that dotted his house, Niall was Yorkshire personified in his tight-buttoned, blunt-speaking manner. Irritated, he snatched a mouthful of dark brew from his glass and unfolded his newspaper. It had been a long hot day, he had laboured hard on the railway and, with his tale about the wolf overshadowed, all he desired was to be left in peace to finish his Guinness and read the press. Trained to accept this, his boys scrambled off their chairs and went to play outside. But, as ever, the women wouldn’t let him rest.

      Ellen broke off spying to bustle in and urge her husband persuasively, ‘Go on, darlin’, before he gets too far ahead. He’s the one who’s devious – he knows he’s in the wrong otherwise why would he lie?’

      ‘We don’t know he is lying.’ But at the back of his mind Niall knew they were right: his brother had looked shifty when questioned as to his intended whereabouts. Sean had rarely ventured

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