‘Don’t fret! The minute he gets home I’ll be waiting for him. I’m not having this family brought into disrepute.’ With a look of grim determination, Niall finally got to rest his aching body in an armchair, the brown artificial leather creaking as he slumped upon it. Purchased in a moment of rebellion against having his home cluttered with Nora’s belongings, aside from the fireplace it was one of the few tokens of modernity about the house. Faced with that looming monstrous presence that was the sideboard, Niall bent to remove his boots, then thought better of it. Nora would no doubt start wittering at him, and besides, he’d only have to put them on again when he went to confront Sean. Contenting himself with loosening their laces, he threw an abstracted smile of gratitude at Ellen, who had replenished his glass with Guinness, and whilst she herself supervised the children’s bedtime prayers, he opened the evening newspaper.
But, as before, he found himself reading the same line several times due to the angry commentary of his mother-in-law as she waited by the front window for the perpetrator’s return. Normally he could ignore her, but tonight his own annoyance with Sean made this impossible, and eventually he left the room to seek refuge in the outside lavatory. How could someone of five foot two make her presence so felt? For if there was one anomaly about Nora Beasty it was that she looked much larger in photographs than in real life. Niall recalled his first sighting of her, when his relationship with Ellen had grown serious and she had produced a family snapshot as a preview to what Niall could expect upon making their acquaintance. If he had felt intimidated then by those steel-grey eyes, the iron jaw and hawkish nose, he had felt even more so at meeting Nora in the flesh, for her personality filled the room – much like her sideboard. Yet he had been astounded at how short she was. Short and stout and determined. Wide those hips might be, yet there was barely a hint of femininity about Nora, rather an armour-platedness; and despite the scallops of lace at collar and cuffs, the delicate chain of the locket she wore, and the slender gold band of her wristwatch, there was a mannish strength to her arm. Niall had been quite alarmed, for was it not said that a woman grew into her mother?
Thankfully, Ellen’s jaw was not so square, her face softened by a fringe of brown curls; she had a maternal tenderness in her clear blue eyes that Nora could never have possessed, even in girlhood. For although Nora had been very good to him in many respects, there lurked behind that initial smile of welcome the hint of a nastier side, which he had quickly discovered could be evoked at the drop of some harmless comment, and woe betide anyone who crossed her. A much younger man then, he had avoided doing or saying anything that might upset his mother-in-law – not that Niall was the type to go around upsetting folk just for the sake of it, nor was he someone who shrank from a fight, it was simply that he couldn’t see the point in disrupting an otherwise ordered life by indulging in petty squabbles with the matriarch, even if she did regularly test his patience. But short of hitting her, he could not alter her wilful character – and one could not hit a woman. So for the sake of keeping everyone happy, if things got too much he would simply leave the room, and for the next thirteen years this was the way he had orchestrated his marriage. He could not say that he himself was ecstatically happy – what labouring man could boast contentment with his lot? – but so long as he had a steady job, a roof over his head, and his children were healthy and well fed, he would never complain. It could have been far worse. The rest of the daughters – not just the younger pair, Dolly and Harriet, but also the other two who had flown the nest – all were quite plain, their eyes slightly protuberant and grey like their mother’s, their hair nondescript and their figures unappealing, and he counted himself lucky to have landed the only one amongst them who was reasonable-looking. Whilst no raving beauty, Ellen had the ability to look clean and trim, even when she was up to her eyes in housework, always having a tasty meal ready for him, and she was a wonderful mother to his children. The only characteristic she shared with her sisters was those thin lips, which showed a proclivity for intolerance and spite. Niall had come to know that this was not mere fancy, the amount of times they had ganged up on folk over the years. For a second he rather pitied his brother, who looked set to experience the full strength of their wrath; but for only a second. Never by any stretch of the imagination would he himself behave in such an overhasty manner should anything befall Ellen.
Which was why, the instant his lookout gave warning that Sean had arrived home, Niall was out of the door and over the road in the time it took to tie his bootlaces.
‘Don’t try creeping in!’
About to cross the threshold, Sean jumped and spun round, then retorted in anger, ‘Why should I creep into me own house?’
‘You know bloody well why!’ accused Niall.
Sean scoffed in disgust. ‘If you think I’m going to explain myself to you – you’re t’one who should be explaining, spying on me like that!’
‘I wouldn’t have to spy if you had any sense of right and wrong!’ Niall’s dark, shaggy eyebrows were arched in disbelief. ‘For God’s sake, your wife’s hardly cold!’
‘Three months is a long time when you’re on your own!’ There was a hint of supplication in the face that was very like that of its accuser, with dark hair and vivid blue eyes, if slightly younger and not so healthy, for Sean worked in a factory. ‘You don’t know what it’s like coming in to an empty house …’
But Niall was not to be won over. ‘If that’s your only excuse then get a lodger.’
All vestige of peace-making drained from the younger brother’s face, usurped by contempt. ‘You clever sod! You know what your trouble is? You’re just jealous because you resent me having a bit of happiness when you’re so bloody miserable.’
A second of stunned silence – then, ‘Don’t talk bull!’
‘It’s bloody right! You’d love to escape from Ellen and her lot, given the chance.’
‘Right?’ sputtered Niall, angered by the insult and coming dangerously close to his opponent’s face. ‘What would you know about right?’
‘I know what’s right for me,’ parried Sean, ‘and I intend to get on with it, so you can go back and tell that to the ones who are pulling your strings!’
Now totally incensed at being portrayed as only here to do the women’s bidding, Niall returned fire, dappling his brother’s face with saliva. ‘It’s not just them as thinks you’re a traitor! For Christ’s sake, can’t you even do the decent thing and wait a year at least?’
‘A year – who’s to say what’s a reasonable time?’ This penchant for sticking to the rules had always annoyed Sean. ‘Why do you always have to do things by the letter? Why can’t you take into account that some people aren’t as regimented as yourself and might just happen to fall in love?’
‘Love – you? Pff!’ Niall laughed, but his eyes bulged with danger. ‘We both know what you’re after!’
‘I don’t give a damn what you think of me, but don’t you dare insult my friends with your mucky insinuations!’ Restricted by his collar and tie, Sean’s brow had broken out in a sweat, his face cherry red, his eyes brimming with fury. ‘Emma’s a good, decent woman and that was the first time we’ve walked out together.’
‘Well … I meant no slur on her.’ Blood still pounding through the veins in his temples, Niall’s reply was tempered by remorse, though only for the woman who might be innocent. ‘Maybe she’s unaware of your position; maybe you misled her like you’ve misled us.’
‘She knows all there is to know about me,’ retorted Sean to this double-edged apology, he too becoming less vociferous now, if no less firm. ‘And I didn’t lie to you. I said I was going out with somebody from work. You just assumed it was a bloke.’
‘It was natural to assume it when you said you were off to play billiards!’ countered Niall.
‘Women