Читать книгу Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit - Anne Bennett - Страница 15

With the business of the letters, Tom felt he had failed Molly, yet he knew there was no way on God’s earth that he could have changed his mother’s mind in the slightest degree. But one thing he was determined on was that she would keep her date with the McEvoys. So the next day in Buncrana, without saying a word to Molly about it and also unbeknownst to his mother, Tom had had a word with the postmistress.

Knowing her to be a kindly woman and one who could hold her own counsel if she had to, he put her wise to the situation at the house. Nellie wasn’t surprised because she had had Biddy in already that morning with the two letters for Birmingham and she had told Nellie straight out that she had written to Molly’s grandfather and the neighbour Hilda, saying that they were to have no further contact with Molly. Nellie thought it extremely harsh, but when she tried saying this, Biddy nearly bit her head off.

‘I can’t have her consorting in any way with those heathens in Birmingham. I would have thought you, as a good Catholic, would understand that.’

‘But they are the people she has always known, Biddy, and she is so alone in the world. Surely to God a few letters would do no harm.’

‘I will be the judge of that,’ Biddy had snapped. ‘The girl is in my care and I will do as I see fit.’

Nellie had said nothing further, knowing it anyway to be futile, but took the two letters from Biddy with a heavy heart and so, as she listened to Tom, she wasn’t unduly surprised.

‘I thought there was something not quite right when I saw the harsh way she treated her outside the church last Sunday,’ she said. ‘We were all looking forward to meeting Nuala’s daughter and my, when I saw how she resembled her mother, it was like taking a step back in time. And then the priest came over to greet them and your mother spouted it out about Molly’s father. I could hardly believe it, and you could see young Molly was upset. Everyone was on about it after.’

It was the first Tom knew of any of this. ‘What about her father?’

Nellie told him what his mother had said. Tom was angered and understood Molly vowing that she would not let anyone denigrate her parents and go unchallenged ever again. He burst out, ‘Do you know, I don’t give a tinker’s cuss whether the man was a Catholic, a Protestant or a Hindu. He was a good father to Molly and that, as far as I am concerned, is that. You should hear how she talks of him – of all of them. It would break your heart, especially as she is so brave, yet her loss was surely a grievous one. And it must have made things worse to be then ripped away from all that was familiar to her, including her grandfather, who seemed such an important part of her life.’

‘It must be hard for her right enough,’ Nellie said. ‘I would say a little understanding and compassion wouldn’t come amiss.’

‘Nor would I,’ Tom said.

‘Molly needs time away from the farm,’ Nellie said. ‘She needs to meet and mix with people her own age and that was one of the reasons I asked her to tea at our house. You don’t think your mother might forbid her to come?’

‘Oh, yes I do,’ Tom said. ‘But I have been puzzling over a way to get around this and I think if you were to ask her in front of people before church in the morning, as if you had just thought of it, and get the priest to endorse it, as it were, we just might get my bloody mother to agree and without too much of a row and ruction.’

‘God, Tom, how did you ever get a mother like Biddy?’ Nellie asked with a laugh. ‘You are one of the nicest and most nonconfrontational people I know.’

‘Even the mildest worm can turn,’ Tom said. ‘And even if I won’t do it for me, maybe I will for Molly.’

‘Well, that is a sight I would like to see anyway,’ Nellie said. ‘But don’t you worry about this Sunday. I will prime the neighbours as well as the priest, and between the lot of us we will have Biddy eating out of the palm of our hands.’

‘Hah, I doubt that very much.’

‘And so do I really,’ Nellie said with a grim little smile. ‘However, for Molly’s sake we will do our best.’

As soon as they reached the church that Sunday morning, Cathy pounced on Molly and spirited her away, saying she wanted to introduce her to her friends. And Molly went without asking, or even giving Biddy a look of any sort. Biddy could see her now in a group of young girls like herself, laughing and talking fifteen to the dozen as if she had known them all her life, and she vowed she would make Molly pay for that act of wilfulness when she got her home.

Then to cap it all, Nellie was by her elbow, asking if Molly could come to tea with them that evening. Before Biddy had a chance to say that she couldn’t, everyone else took up the conversation, saying what a great idea and how grand it was for young people, like, to be together. Even the priest joined in.

‘Molly has duties at home,’ Biddy said through tight lips.

‘Ah, but less on Sunday, surely?’ said the priest. ‘The Good Lord did not labour on the seventh day, on the Sabbath. It’s not just for resting either, particularly for the young. It is for doing things you can’t do on the other days of the week, like taking a walk perhaps, or visiting a friend. I can’t think of anything nicer than Molly calling for tea with Cathy McEvoy.’

Biddy could think of a host of things she would rather have the girl do, but she felt as if she was caught in a corner. She would have said she hadn’t a whit of interest in the townspeople and their opinion mattered not a jot to her, but Nellie McEvoy was the postmistress and that position meant power. It wouldn’t do to make a real enemy of her. And then, of course, there was the priest. Biddy knew that this time, anyway, she would have to let the bloody girl go to tea with Nellie and her family, and she would wish her joy of it because if she had her way it would be for the last time.

However, Biddy was no fool. She knew that the fiasco had been engineered and could have an educated guess as to who was behind it too: the son she had once thought she could count on. The thought that she might be losing her influence over Tom put her in a filthy temper, and so she scowled her way through the Mass, and once it was over, she scurried from the place, pushing Molly in front of her and calling for Tom to hurry up. She looked neither to the right nor to the left and addressed no one as they made their way home. That gave the townsfolk something else to discuss over their dinner.

Tom and Molly had to put up with Biddy’s ill humour all day. Her nagging and complaining reached new heights and Molly got more than one unwarranted slap. But she didn’t care, not that day, when, with the dinner eaten and the dishes washed and put away, she took up her coat. Tom whistled to Skip and Fly as they crossed the cobbled yard, and together they walked across the fields to Buncrana and Cathy’s place above the post office.

‘I’m so glad that you could come,’ Cathy said.

‘And me,’ Molly said fervently. ‘I had my doubts I’d be let when your mother asked me last week.’

‘I know,’ Cathy said, and she giggled. ‘I think Mammy and your uncle hatched something between them yesterday. I was going to go into the post office and saw them with their heads together. I couldn’t hear what they were saying and all, but then this morning, as we set off for Mass, Mammy said for me to get you away from your grandmother with some excuse. Well, that was easy because all the other girls wanted to meet you. I tell you, Molly, you have been the subject of many of our conversations. I thought you would be joining us at the school, tell you the truth.’

‘I would rather be at school any day in comparison to the drudge I am fast turning into,’ Molly told Cathy firmly. ‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘I should be there. I’m not fourteen and won’t be until February.’

‘Then why … ?’

‘My grandmother said I had enough book-learning and that more of it would not fit me any better for life on the farm.’

‘And you would rather be at school?’

‘Much rather.’

‘I can’t wait to leave.’

‘Yeah, but what are you leaving to?’ Molly said. ‘Your mother runs the shop and post office so I suppose there will be some employment for you?’

‘Oh, aye,’ Cathy said. ‘It’s what she wants for me, now I am the only one left. I have two sisters and two brothers, but they have all left home now and are, anyway, much older than me. Really, it was like being an only child in many ways.’

‘It was the other way round in our house,’ Molly said. ‘I am eight years older than my brother, and yet my parents, particularly my mother, made us both feel very special in different ways.’

There was silence in the room for a few moments and Molly felt the changed atmosphere and said a little apprehensively, ‘What’s up? What did I say that was so wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Cathy said. ‘I mean, look, Molly, I was warned not to say one word about your mother and you just came out with it so natural.’

‘I suppose you were told that in case it would upset me?’ Molly said.

‘Aye, that’s what Mammy said.’

Molly thought for a second or two and then said, ‘You know, I think that it is far better to talk about my parents, even if it does make me a little sad. Not talking about them at all makes it seem as if they really didn’t exist and they very much did.’

‘I just can’t imagine how you have coped with it all.’

‘Don’t even try,’ Molly advised. ‘It is really so very painful, but I would rather talk of the things we did when they were alive than how and when they died.’

‘Right,’ Cathy said. ‘You are absolutely right, and we won’t go down that road unless you want to.’

Molly was surprised, when Nellie called both girls down for their tea, to find it was a quarter-past five. Never had time passed so quickly. She wished that they could have eaten their tea in the very comfortable bedroom where she could have relaxed properly with Cathy. Although she knew Nellie to be kindly to invite her to tea, she was still nervous of sitting up to a meal with her and Cathy’s father, Jack, whom she had only glimpsed at Mass.

She was worrying unduly, though, because both adults went out of their way to make Molly feel at home and more than welcome. They were like chalk and cheese to look at, Molly noted, for while Nellie was a thin and neat little woman, with eyes the same brown as her daughter’s and the same shape to her mouth, and her grey hair caught up in a bun, her husband was a bear of a man. He was about as tall as Molly’s uncle, but much broader, from his barrel chest to his more than ample stomach. His face was red, his eyes blue, and the hair that he had left on his head light brown.

He was constantly urging Molly to ‘eat up’, and offering her plate after plate of delicacies from the beautifully made sandwiches to the cakes and scones.

‘Mostly shop bought, I am afraid,’ Nellie said apologetically. ‘I am too busy with the shop to bake as well.’

Molly didn’t care. She seldom had food so fine and she tucked in with relish.

‘That’s the way, young Molly,’ said Jack approvingly. ‘I love to see a girl with an appetite.’

‘If we all ate enough to please you, Daddy, we’d be the size of a house,’ Cathy said.

Jack’s eyes twinkled as he gazed at his daughter. ‘Not at all, at all,’ he said. ‘Molly at least knows that the only thing to do with good food is eat it.’

Molly immediately wondered if she had eaten too much, been greedy. Nellie noticed her slight hesitation and urged, ‘You eat away, Molly. Nothing vexes a woman more than preparing food that people just pick at.’

Cathy hooted with laughter. ‘No danger of that here, Mammy. Anything anyone leaves is eaten by Daddy, shown clearly by his girth.’

‘You cheeky young rip,’ Jack said, but there was no menace in his voice, even when he added, ‘You are not too old for a good hiding, you know.’

‘Oh, that would be the day,’ Nellie said. ‘You have never laid a hand on any of them, even the lads, who could sometimes have done with a father’s hand. All the chastising was left to me.’

‘I am too big a man and my hands too large and rough to be hitting weans, sure,’ Jack said. ‘And you must have done the job right, for the children made a fine turn-out, the boys too.’

‘Even me?’ Cathy asked impishly.

‘No,’ Jack said. ‘Not you, for you are the worst of the lot.’ And he winked at Molly as he went on, ‘Completely ungovernable. Still, there is usually one bad apple in every barrel.’

‘Cheek!’ spluttered Cathy indignantly, while the laughter swelled around the table and Molly thought that the love apparent between Cathy and her parents reminded her of how it had been in her own home. She refused to let herself be sad and spoil this happy atmosphere, but Nellie had seen the shadow flit across Molly’s eyes and could guess her thoughts. ‘I think that we should have a bit of decorum when we sit down to a meal, particularly on a Sunday,’ she said, with a smile for Molly. ‘I would say that Molly is shocked to the core, are you not, child?’

Molly could see by the smile on Nellie’s face that she didn’t believe this for a moment, and without a trace of self-pity, she said, ‘No, not at all. I like it. It reminds me of some of the meals we used to have at home.’

There was a sudden silence and before it could become uncomfortable, Nellie said gently, ‘Can I say, my dear, if it won’t upset you too much, how like your mother you are?’

‘I know,’ Molly said happily. ‘And I am glad. My little brother looks more like my dad did. And no, it doesn’t upset me to talk about them. I don’t want anyone to think that there were so many things they couldn’t say to me that it was safest to say nothing at all, or skirt around the subject as if they were treading on eggshells.’

‘Well said, Molly,’ Jack said, clapping her on the back. ‘I think that that is the very best way to look at things. Now can I tempt you to take another cake?’

Molly shook her head. ‘I couldn’t eat another thing. I am almost too full to move already.’

‘I hope you’re not,’ Cathy said. ‘I want to show you the town.’

‘Oh,’ Molly said, ‘I would like that, but shouldn’t we help with washing-up, first?’

‘Not today,’ Nellie said firmly as she began collecting the plates. ‘Maybe when you are a regular visitor here I will let you put your hands in the sink or wield a tea towel, but today make use of the fine evening.’

‘And try and work off that lovely tea.’

‘That as well,’ Nellie said with a smile.

The post office was situated almost at the top of a hill on a wide and straight street with the hills visible in the distance ahead. It was as they walked to the top of it that Molly saw the cinema and she exclaimed in amazement. It was a sizeable cinema too, made of honey-coloured brick with arched doors at the entrance.

‘Why the shock?’ Cathy asked. ‘I’m sure they have cinemas in Birmingham.’

Molly laughed. ‘Yes, of course. The Palace cinema was just up the road, on the High Street of Erdington and there were any number if you went as far as the town, and music halls and theatres, but somehow I thought—’

‘That backwards old Ireland couldn’t have such a thing; that we share our hovel with the pigs.’

‘Cathy, I never said such a thing, or thought it either.’

‘Good job too,’ Cathy said with a grin and added, ‘Some people do, you know – English people, of course. Actually, Buncrana is a thriving little place. We have factories and mills and all sorts. In fact,’ she went on, pointing down the other side of the hill to the large grey building at the bottom of it, ‘that’s the mill my father works at. We’ll go and take a look, if you like.’

‘Oh,’ Molly said as the two of them began walking down the hill past the numerous little cottages that opened on the street, ‘he doesn’t work in the post office then?’

Cathy laughed. ‘Daddy would be no great shakes in the post office; more a liability, I think, for he can’t reckon up to save his life. Mammy is going to train me up for it as soon as I am sixteen. Till then, once I leave school for good, I will man the sweet counter and deal with the papers and cigarettes. Mammy has someone to do this now but she is leaving to get married next year, which couldn’t be better timing.’

As they walked, they met others out, some standing on their doorsteps taking the air like themselves, or groups of children playing, and most had a cheery wave or greeting for the two girls. Molly felt happiness suddenly fill her being. It was the very first time she had felt this way since that dreadful day that the policeman had come to the door, and she gave a sudden sigh.

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing, nothing at all,’ Molly said. ‘That’s why I am sighing.’

Cathy smiled at her and then said, without rancour, ‘You’re crackers, that’s what. Clean balmy.’

Molly nodded sagely. ‘I know it,’ she said. ‘It isn’t so bad if a person is aware of it.’

Cathy began to laugh, and her giggle was so infectious that Molly, who had once wondered if she would ever laugh again, joined in.

‘Did you see the faces of those we passed?’ Cathy said, when their hilarity was spent a little and she was dabbing at her damp eyes with a handkerchief. ‘If we are not careful, they will have the men with the white coats carry us away to the mental home in Derry.’

‘Rubbish,’ Molly said with a grin. ‘It made them smile too. Laughter is like that.’

‘My mammy always says it’s good for a body,’ Cathy agreed. ‘She says she had read somewhere that if you have a good belly laugh it can lengthen your life.’

‘Goodness!’ Molly said. ‘Can it really? I wonder by how much.’

‘Maybe we should have a good laugh every five minutes and live for ever,’ Cathy suggested.

‘Now, who is the fool?’ Molly smiled.

Cathy didn’t have time to answer this, for then they passed under the bridge carrying the railway line and there was the mill in front of them.

It was built on three levels, the largest of these having a tall, high chimney reaching to the sky. It didn’t look a very inspiring place to work in, but Molly reminded herself there were probably worse places in Birmingham, and she supposed that if it was work there or starve to death, one place was as inviting as the next.

‘Awful, isn’t it?’ Cathy said. ‘Daddy always said he didn’t want any of his children near the place but my brothers, John and Pat, had to work there for a bit. Then the place went afire four years ago. No one knew for a while if anyone was going to bother rebuilding it, and anyway, the boys didn’t stay around to find out. They both took the emigrant ship to America from Moville and Daddy said he didn’t blame them. They are in a place called Detroit now and, according to their letters anyway, have good jobs there in the motor industry.’

‘Didn’t your mother mind them going so far away?’ Molly asked.

Cathy nodded. ‘It was worse, of course, when my sisters left just a year after the boys to work in hotels in England. They say it is great, the hotel provides the uniforms, a place to stay and all their food, and all they need to do with their money is spend it, though they do send some home, and the boys too. It’s not the same, though. It isn’t that Mammy isn’t grateful for the money, she just says it’s hard to scrimp and scrape, working fingers to the bone raising children only for them to leave as soon as possible. She was married at seventeen, you know?’

‘Was she?’ Molly said. ‘It seems awfully young.’

‘I’ll say,’ Cathy said with feeling. ‘I certainly don’t want to go down that road at such an early age. My sisters don’t either. They say they are having too good a time to tie themselves down with a husband and weans, and that is what happens, of course, as soon as you are married. I mean, Mammy had my eldest brother, John, just ten months after they were married and he’s twenty-six now.’ She smiled and went on, ‘Mammy was glad that it was ten months. She always said the most stupid people in all the towns and villages of Ireland have the ability to count to nine.’

‘You can say that again,’ Molly said, for the girls were well aware that to have a baby outside marriage was just about the worst thing a girl could do, and to have to get married was only slightly better.

‘Anyway, Mammy hates my sisters writing so glowingly about their lives in England,’ Cathy continued. ‘She’s thinking, I suppose, that I might be tempted to join them.’

‘And are you?’

‘Not at the moment, certainly,’ Cathy said. ‘I like it here and I am set to have a good solid job helping to run the post office and probably going to take it on in the end. I don’t want to throw that in the air now, do I?’

‘Only if you were stupid,’ Molly said. ‘I really envy you to have your life so mapped out. But I will not bide here for ever. I will leave here as soon as I am old enough and be reunited with my young brother. I really miss him.’

‘Well, there in front of us is the railway station you will have to start from,’ Cathy said. ‘But you probably know that already.’

‘No. Why would I know that?’

‘Didn’t you come in there on your way from Derry?’

‘No,’ Molly told her. ‘Uncle Tom brought us home in the cart.’

‘Oh, I didn’t know that,’ Cathy said. ‘It was probably just as well, for Derry is only six miles away from here, and the trains are far from reliable. They carry freight as well, with the passengers in a sort of brake thing behind them, and of course stop at every station to unload.’

‘I would have travelled in anything at that time,’ Molly said. ‘I was so worn out. We had been on and off trains and boats since early morning.’

‘Were you sick on the crossing?’

‘I’ll say.’ Molly added with a grin, ‘It was a bit of a waste too, because we had both had breakfast on the boat and we brought it back just minutes later and everything else that had the nerve to lie in our stomachs.’

Cathy nodded, ‘My sisters said they were the same, and my younger brother, Pat, was so ill, John thought he would die on him. I bet he was more than glad to reach land, because they were at sea for ten days.’

Molly gave a shiver. ‘Poor thing,’ she said. ‘I had three and a half hours of it and that was enough.’

‘I bet,’ Cathy said with feeling. ‘Well, this now is the station. The roof looks bigger than the building. And I know where you get the tickets, because I came to see my sisters off.’ She led the way to a two-storeyed, flat-roofed building housing the ticket office, adjoining the main body of the station, and then past that and on to the platform. Molly followed and looked about her with interest. She tried to imagine the time when she would board a train from there to take her home.

‘What’s that mass of green in front?’ she asked Cathy.

‘The golf course.’

‘Golly, don’t they lose their golf balls in the water ever?’ Molly asked, because she could see the glistening waters of the Swilly just beyond the course.

Cathy smiled. ‘Probably lots of times.’

‘And what’s beyond that on the other side of the Lough?’

‘Rathmullen,’ Cathy said, pointing. ‘And just a bit further up, Glenvar. Come on now,’ she urged. ‘I want to show you the harbour where the fishing boats come in.’

Molly was impressed by the harbour and all the fishing vessels vying for space at the dockside, and she was charmed by the Lough, which she thought was just as good as the stories she had heard about the seaside because, just along from the harbour, she could plainly see large rocks and sandy beaches.

Cathy hailed two friends, Bernadette McCauley and Maeve Gilligan, whom Molly had met at Mass. Then Cathy pointed out the diving board and chute on the far side of the Lough. ‘My brothers learned to swim there,’ she said. ‘Most boys did, but of course we girls were forbidden to go near.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, some boys swam with no clothes on,’ Cathy said. ‘Not my brothers – Mammy wouldn’t let them – but some, and that is not a sight I would like to see.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ murmured Bernadette. ‘That surely would depend on the boy.’

‘Bernadette McCauley,’ exclaimed Cathy and Maeve together.

Cathy went on, ‘Confession for you, my girl. Impure thoughts and all.’

Bernadette just laughed. ‘I am telling no priest the thoughts that pop up in my head,’ she declared. ‘The poor man couldn’t stand the excitement. God, I’m sure his hair would stand on end.’

The girls exploded with laughter at the image conjured up, and then suddenly Cathy noticed how low the sun was. She said to Molly, ‘We’d best get on if you want to see Swan Park, for your uncle will be waiting for you,’ and with a wave to the other two girls, she led the way.

‘This sort of goes back the way we came,’ Cathy said. And we will go a little bit along here to show you and then make for home. All right?’

‘You bet.’

‘We have to go across Castle Bridge, which you can see in front of you now. It spans the Crana River where the town got its name from.’

‘And what’s that wall on the other side of it?’

‘Part of the grounds of the castle, which you will see once you are on the bridge.’

As they stepped off the bridge, to the side was a crumbling tower, which Cathy said was called O’Dohery’s Keep, dating back to the Middle Ages, but the building that Cathy had referred to as a castle was just a three-storeyed, slate-roofed house. It was made of brick and had a protruding wing on either end of it. Wide steps led up to the front door with ornamental railings either side, but it still wasn’t Molly’s idea of a castle.

‘Well, I know,’ Cathy said. ‘Not officially, it isn’t. I meant it was only built in seventeen something, but it’s a sort of custom in Ireland to call large houses castles. Now, if we take this pathway through here, then we can get to the Swilly and there is a walkway that we can take.’

The path was overhung with trees, heavy with leaves and blossom, and the hedgerows alive with flowers. Molly felt very much at peace with the world as she followed behind her new friend. And then the Lough was before them, shimmering like gold in the waning sun.

‘Let’s see if we can get as far as the fort before we turn back,’ Cathy suggested. ‘We can do it if we put a spurt on.’

They hurried on, greeting those they met, but not stopping to chat, and in no time at all they had passed the boathouse where the lifeboat was kept, and then the fort.

‘Built in Napoleonic times,’ Cathy said as they surveyed the massive structure. But they had no time to linger, for the sun had sunk lower still. They retraced their steps and were soon on Main Street again.

‘Plenty of pubs along here,’ Cathy said as they climbed the hill, ‘and they have all been here as long as I can remember, so they obviously do good enough trade, but then,’ she said, wrinkling her nose, ‘as Mammy said, any number of pubs would do good trade in Ireland, the only business where you would be sure to make money.’ And then she laughed and said, ‘Daddy goes to the pub sometimes – Grant’s Bar usually – and he says he goes not as often as he would like, yet far too often in my mother’s opinion.’

‘Do they argue over it?’

‘No,’ Cathy said with a smile. ‘It’s just an ongoing theme, you know? Anyway, here we are home again and I hope your uncle isn’t cross if he has had to wait ages.’

‘Oh, Uncle Tom won’t be cross,’ Molly said with confidence. ‘He never is.’

Tom and Jack were sitting chatting and drinking deeply of the malt whiskey that Jack had produced. Molly had never seen her uncle drink anything but tea, water or buttermilk before. She had thought maybe he didn’t care for alcohol and she asked him about it as they walked back together.

‘Oh, I suppose I like a beer as well as the next man, and I love a drop of whiskey now and then,’ Tom said after a minute or two’s thought. ‘But it all costs money, and apart from that, when I have done a full day’s work, I am not up to trudging over to Buncrana, especially when I have to get up early for the milking. Sunday is the one day when I take things easier. What about you? What sort of a day have you had?’

‘Wonderful,’ Molly said, and even in the dusk, Tom saw a light behind Molly’s eyes that he had never seen before and he vowed he would do all in his power to keep it there at least once a week. ‘I really like Cathy,’ Molly told her uncle, ‘and I wish I had been let go to school.’

‘So do I,’ Tom said. ‘And Mammy would be in big trouble if the authorities got to hear about it. I can’t do anything about that, but you can still be friends with Cathy. How would you like to go to the McEvoys’ for tea next Sunday too?’

‘I would love it if I am asked, but your mother—’

‘Leave my mother to me,’ Tom said. ‘Nellie and Jack said you are welcome every Sunday evening. You made quite an impression, and I will come over to fetch you home.’

‘There is no need,’ Molly said.

‘There’s every need,’ Tom maintained. ‘Anyway, the walk will do me no harm at all and give me the chance to sink a few pints with Jack in Grant’s Bar while I wait for you. It will do me good as well to get out and meet people. A person can be too much on their own and this will be a fine opportunity for the pair of us.’