LITMIR.BIZ

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knew nothing of the death of her father, whom she had loved so much. Nor did she know that her brother, Joe, unable to stand the atmosphere in the house any more, had taken himself off to America. That only left Tom, the eldest, still on the farm.

      ‘It’s sad, though,’ Molly said to her granddad. ‘Do you think she still misses her parents – or her brothers, anyway?’

      ‘I reckon she is used to it by now,’ Stan said. ‘Ted told me that in the beginning she used to talk about them a lot. As the years passed, she would say she often wondered if her brothers had married, and that it was sad for you to maybe have Irish cousins that you would never ever know.’

      ‘Well, I’m glad Mom didn’t let her parents stop her getting married, anyway,’ Molly had declared stoutly, ‘for me and our Kevin have the nicest and kindest parents anyone could wish for.’

      ‘Oh I don’t think either of them ever regretted it,’ Stan said. ‘Like me and Phoebe were, they are happy and easy with each other. Your father has been like a lost soul without your mother and now soon she will be here again and everything will be back to normal.’

      But the minutes ticked into hours and there was still no sign of the car. Stan sat in the chair and smoked one cigarette after the other, anxiety tugging at him.

      He opened his packet of cigarettes again and was surprised to find it empty. ‘Will you pop down to the paper shop and get me ten Park Drive, Moll?’ he said. ‘I must be smoking like a chimney. I’m clean out.’

      Molly didn’t want to stir from the house until her parents came through the door, but it wasn’t as if the paper shop was miles away. It was only in Station Road, which Osbourne Road led into, and it would take her no time at all, if she ran. So she said, ‘All right, Granddad’ and took the half a crown, he offered her.

      Molly had scarcely left the house when Stan saw a policeman striding up the path, and his stomach gave a lurch. Telling Kevin to stay where he was, he went to the door, his heart as heavy as lead.

      The young and very nervous policeman licked his lips before saying, ‘I am looking for a Mr Stanley Maguire.’

      ‘You’ve found him,’ Stan said, in a voice made husky with apprehension. Policemen didn’t come to anyone’s door to impart good news.

      When the policeman said, ‘Could I come inside, sir?’ Stan said, ‘I’d rather not have you in just now. I have my grandson in there and he is only five years old. Perhaps you’d better state your business here.’

      The policeman wasn’t used to imparting such news and certainly not on the doorstep, but he could quite see the man’s point of view. He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders and said, ‘I’m afraid, sir, there has been an accident involving a Mr Edward Maguire and a Mrs Nuala Maguire. Your name was among their effects. I believe they are your son and his wife?’

      Stan nodded solemnly and let his breath out slowly, while the news seeped into his brain. Hadn’t he feared something like this when they were much later than expected? ‘How are they?’ he asked.

      ‘I’m afraid, sir, the accident was a fatal one.’

      Stan couldn’t take that in. ‘Fatal?’ he repeated. ‘You mean they are dead?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘Both of them?’

      ‘I am afraid so. They died instantly, so I believe.’

      ‘But how … ? I mean, what happened?’

      ‘They were in collision with a van,’ the policeman said. ‘The doctors think the van driver had a heart attack and died at the wheel and the van then crashed into your son’s car.’

      ‘Dear Almighty Christ!’ Stan cried. Tears started in his eyes and began to trickle down his wrinkled cheeks.

      ‘Is there anyone I could call for you, sir?’ the policeman said, worried for the man, who had turned a bad shade of grey.

      ‘There is no one,’ Stan said, realising at that moment how alone he was. There was no one left but him and the children and the burden of responsibility joined that of sorrow and lodged between his shoulder blades weighing him down. But he faced the policeman and said, ‘It’s all right, I will be fine. I shall have to be fine, for my son and his wife were the parents of the wee boy in the room there and I shall have to break the news to him and his sister.’

      ‘If you are sure, sir?’

      ‘I’m sure,’ Stan said, but he wiped his face with a handkerchief before he went in to face his grandson, who looked up at him bewildered and a little frightened.

      Kevin had wondered who was at the door and normally he would have gone out to see, for in fact few people knocked in that street, but as he neared the door, the serious tone of the conversation unnerved him, though he couldn’t hear what was being said. So, instead of going out to them, he stole up the stairs and into his parents’ bedroom where the window was a bay and, even with the overhang of the door, a person could usually see who was there. Kevin could see the policeman clearly.

      In Kevin’s short experience of life, policemen spelled trouble. Even when you had no idea you were doing anything wrong, they could usually find something to tick a boy off for. He didn’t associate them with breaking bad news, so when his grandfather returned he was back in the room and he asked apprehensively, ‘What did the copper want, Granddad?’

      Stan looked at the child and he wished with all his heart and soul he could protect him from what he had to say, but he knew he couldn’t. He sat down beside Kevin and put an arm around his shoulders as Molly burst in. She had spotted the policeman leaving their door as she had turned the corner and sped home as fast as she could.

      Older and wiser than Kevin, she knew that the police did other things than box the ears of errant and cheeky boys. She cried, What is it? What’s up?’

      She saw that tears were spilling from her grandfather’s eyes and her hands were clenched so tightly at her sides that she was crushing the cigarette packet she hadn’t been aware that she was still holding. ‘Please, please,’ she begged, sinking to her knees before her grandfather. ‘Please tell me what’s wrong.’

      Stan tried valiantly to stem the tears and he lifted Kevin onto his knee and snuggled Molly beside him, his arm encircling her as he broke the news as gently as a person could, that their parents had been killed in a car accident.

      Both children looked at him in shock. Molly thought there must be some mistake, it couldn’t be true, of course it couldn’t.

      It was the howl of sheer unadulterated agony, which preceded the paroxysm of grief that Kevin displayed, that started her own tears as she cried out for such terrible loss. The pain of it seemed to be consuming her whole body.

      And that is how Hilda found them, as she told her husband later. ‘Sodden with sadness was the only way to describe it and no wonder. Almighty Christ, how will they survive this, the poor wee mites? I feel the grievous loss of one of the best friends I ever had, but Molly and little Kevin. God Almighty! Isn’t life a bugger at times?’

      Many thought the same, for Hilda had not been the only one to spot the policeman at the Maguire’s door, especially amongst those neighbours on the look out for the car, ready to welcome Nuala home. Now those same neighbours gathered in the house, feeling helpless at the sight of such heartbreaking grief, but feeling they needed to be there. The party tea all set out seemed such a mockery now.

      Most of the rest of that day was a blur for Molly. She remembered people trying to get her to eat something, but she wasn’t hungry. She was filled with sorrow and anguish, but she drank the hot sweet tea that they pressed on her, because it was easier than arguing with them.

      Other people came – first the priest, Father Clayton, his own eyes full of sorrow. But he could do nothing for them and when he offered to pray with Molly because it might ease her, she turned her face away. She had no desire to pray to a God that allowed her parents to be killed in such a

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