THE WEEPING CHILDREN Joe Saunders and his wife, Brigid, had been married a year when they had their first baby—a little girl they called Nance, after Brigid’s mother. Brigid was Irish, and Joe had always had a feeling that there must be some Irish blood in himself. She was a Catholic, and, though Joe was an unbelever, he liked it in her, and encouraged her to put up holy pictures and statues all over the house. He even went to Mass with her occasionally, but she said he put her off her prayers with his air of devotion, which made him laugh. She often made him laugh, and he liked it, because he had a natural gravity that turned easily to melancholy and even tears. She had good-breeding as well, and he liked that too, though she sometimes upset him by the way she unconsciously patronized his mother and sisters. They were common, and he knew they were common, but he didn’t like it to be rubbed in. Brigid had kept her girlish gaiety and her delight in flirting shamelessly with any man who fancied her. It amused Joe, because for all her charm, he knew the wild, chaste, innocent streak in her, and realized that the smart operators would get absolutely nowhere with her. After Nance’s birth Joe felt that life had done him proud. There were times when he saw everything with a sort of double vision, as though he were not only doing whatever he was doing—like pushing the pram round the estate, or creeping into the back room at night to see that the baby was covered—but watching himself do it, as though he were someone in a film or a book, and the conjunction of the two visions gave the thing itself an intense stereoscopic quality. He was sure that this must be what people meant when they talked of happiness. But he realized that it was different for Brigid. Though at times she could forget herself and play with the baby like a girl with a doll, she was often gloomy, tearful and irritable. This was not like her. Joe’s great friend, Jerry Cross, called it something like post-partem psychosis, and though Joe had no great faith in the long names Jerry liked to give things, he accepted his advice and took Brigid for a week to Brighton. It did her good but only for a short while. Joe—a sensitive man—sometimes thought he knew exactly how she felt—a wild girl with a vivacious temperament, who loved outings and parties, trapped by a morsel of humanity who took everything and gave nothing. Joe was attentive to the point of officiousness, seeing that she went to the cinema and visited friends. But even to old friends she had changed, and had taken a positive dislike to Jerry Cross. Though Jerry was great at giving women little presents, he didn’t seem to like them much, and now Brigid chose to interpret this as dislike of herself. With a sort of schoolgirl pertness that drove Joe to despair she mocked Cross about his over-heated bachelor flat, his expensive gramophone and collection of records, and his liqueur cabinet that always seemed to contain some new exotic drink that Jerry would press on his visitors, rubbing his hands and saying in his anxious way: ‘It’s not bad, is it? I mean, it really is not bad. You think that, too, Joe.’ Twice, to protect Cross, Joe had to reprove her, and though he did it gently, it cut him to the heart to have to do it at all. ‘Why can’t you be nicer to Jerry?’ he asked as they were going home one night. ‘He hasn’t so many friends.’ ‘He has no friends at all, if you ask me,’ Brigid said coldly. ‘He’s too bloody selfish to afford them.’ ‘Selfish?’ Joe exclaimed, stopping dead. ‘A man who put a cheque for two hundred quid on my mantelpiece while I was out of the room!’ ‘We know all that, Brigid said contemptuously. ‘Damn well he knew you wouldn’t take it.’ . ‘He knew more than I did,’ Joe said, resuming his walk. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t the money that mattered at the time. It was his confidence in me. It gave me confidence in myself. I tell you, Brigid, there are things between men that you’ll never understand, not till the day you die.’ But argument had no effect on Brigid except perhaps to give her fresh grounds for spite. One evening at Joe’s house, Cross was boasting innocently of some shady deal he had refused to be connected with, and Brigid, with mock admiration, drew him skilfully out. It was one of Cross’s little weaknesses that he liked to think himself a really shrewd businessman—‘a bloody dreamer’ was how an uncle had described him to Joe. ‘You always play it safe, Jerry, don’t you?’ she asked at last. “What’s that, Brigid?’ Cross asked eagerly, too pleased with himself to be aware of her malice. ‘Brigid!’ Joe said warningly. ‘Anyone who had anything to do with you would want to watch out,’ she said. Cross got up and clutched the lapels of his coat as though he were about to make a speech. It suddenly struck Joe that he was a little man who lived in expectation of having to make speeches—unpleasant ones, in his own defence. ‘I assure you, Brigid, that nobody who had anything to do with me ever had to watch out, as you put it,’ he said overloudly, speaking as it were to a faraway audience. ‘I do play it safe, though. You’re right there, I do. And I’ll play it safer for the future by not calling here, as I have been doing.’ Then he made for the door, and Joe, holding his coat for him, realized that he was shivering violently. Joe opened the door, put his arm round Cross’ shoulder and walked slowly to the gate with him. Cross walked close to him, so as not to break the embrace, and yet Joe knew he did not feel it in a homosexual way. The estate road went uphill to the bus stop on the tree-shaded suburban road, and the two men walked together like sweethearts till they reached it. Then Joe took Cross’ hand in his own two. “Try not to think of it, Jerry,’ he said in a low voice. ‘She doesn’t even know what she’s saying. The girl is sick in her mind.’ ‘She is, Joe, she is, she is,’ Cross said with pathetic eagerness. ‘I thought it from the first, but now I’m sure. I’m sorry I was so sharp with her.’ “You weren’t, Jerry; not so sharp as I’d have been.’ It was only when he had waved goodbye to Cross from the pavement that Joe gave way to tears. He walked slowly up and down the road till the fit had passed. As he entered the house, Brigid was waiting for him in the sitting room, sitting exactly as when he had left. ‘Come in, Joe,’ she said quietly. ‘We have to talk.’ ‘I’m sorry, Brigid, but I don’t want to talk,’ he said, feeling sure that if he did he would break down again. ‘I want to talk,’ she said in a flat tone. ‘It may be the last chance we’ll get. I’ll have to clear out.’ ‘What’s that?’ he asked incredulously. ‘I have to clear out,’ she said again, and he knew that she meant it. It was at moments like these that all the wise passivity in Joe came on top. In his time he had been humiliated, hurt so that the pain had never left him, but he knew you had to give in to it, let the pain wash over you, if you didn’t want it to destroy you. “Why do you think you have to clear out, dear?’ he asked mildly, taking a chair inside the door and joining his hands before him. ‘Because I don’t want to destroy your life the way I destroyed my own,’ she said. ‘Well, I should have something to say to that,’ he said. ‘So should the baby, of course. Unless you’re proposing to take her with you.’ ‘I’m not,’ she said with artificial casualness., ‘I dare say your mother can look after her.’ ‘I dare say she could,’ he said calmly. ‘But it’s not my idea of what a child needs.’ ‘At least your mother won’t insult your friends,’ Brigid said bitterly. He knew then that she had no illusions about her behaviour to Cross, and his heart softened. ‘You mean more to me than any of my friends, dear,’ he said. ‘Even Jerry—and Heaven knows, he means quite a lot. But why do you have to do things like that? They hurt you as much as they hurt other people. What is it, Brigid? Why don’t you trust me? Is it another man?’ For a moment Joe thought she really was going to strike him. Then the humour of it seemed to dawn on her, and she gave a weak grin. ‘You have a very poor opinion of yourself, haven’t you?’ she asked pertly. ‘Even that jenny-ass, Cross, wouldn’t think of a silly thing like that. I never looked at the side of the road a man walked at since I married you.’ There was no mistaking the absolute truthfulness of that, and again he felt the sense of relief, and with it the old tenderness and admiration. ‘Naturally, that’s what I hoped, dear,’ he said. ‘And damn it all, nothing else matters.’ ‘Not even the ones I met before I met you?’ she asked mockingly, and her tone struck him cold again. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You mean there was someone else?’ ‘Naturally,’ she said angrily. And then, as though reading his thoughts, she reverted to her tone of exasperated amusement. ‘Now, I suppose you think I’m breaking my heart over him? I am, like hell! I hope to God I never lay eyes on him again. I wish I could say the same thing about his child.’ ‘His child?’ Joe repeated stupidly. Now he felt that the world really was collapsing about him. ‘You mean you had a child already?’ ‘What do you think brought me over to London in the first place?’ she asked reasonably. ‘I don’t know,’ Joe said with simple dignity. ‘I just thought you might have been telling me the truth when you said you came over for a job. I suppose you’re right to think I’m a bit simple-minded.’ ‘I never thought you were simple-minded,’ she retorted with the fury of a hell-cat. ‘I thought you were too good to be true, if you want to know what I really thought.’ ‘And you have this child where? With your people?’ ‘No, outside Cork,’ she said shortly. ‘I suppose I wanted her as far away as possible. And, as I’m about it, there’s another thing. I pinched some of the housekeeping money to support her. After I left the job I had nothing of my own.’ ‘You could scarcely have left the child to starve,’ he said lightly. ‘That doesn’t count beside the other things.’ ‘What other things?’ ‘All the lies you’ve told me,’ he said bitterly. ‘I didn’t deserve that from you. Look, Brigid, it’s no use pretending ‘I’m not hurt—not by what you’ve just told me. That was your business. But you might have told me before you married me.’ ‘So that you needn’t have married me,’ she asked bitterly. ‘I mean nothing of the sort,’ said Joe. ‘I don’t know what I should have done, but I don’t think it would have come between you and me. You were unfair to me and unfair to the child. You might have trusted me as I trusted you.’ ‘As if the two things were alike?’ she retorted. ‘I told you I thought you were too good to be true. You weren’t, but to get to know you that way I had to marry you first, and to marry you I had to tell you lies. At least, that’s how it seemed to me. And a hell of a lot of good it did me!’ Joe sighed. ‘Anyway, we have to think what we’re to do about this child, and that’s something we can’t decide tonight.’ ‘There’s only one thing to do, Joe,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to go back to London and get a job.’ She said it manfully enough, but he knew she didn’t mean it. She was begging him to find some way out for her. ‘We don’t have to break up this house,’ he said with determination. ‘Damn it, it’s our own. We can still bring her to live with us.’ ‘But I don’t want her to live with us,’ she said angrily. ‘Can’t you understand? It was all a miserable bloody mistake, and I don’t want you to have to live with it either. It’s just that I feel such a bitch, having everything in the world I want while she has nothing.’ ‘I see that,’ Joe said gently. ‘I see it’s not an easy question. We’ll have to think of something, that’s all.’ He thought a lot about it that night, though less of what they were to do with Brigid’s child than of the disaster that had overtaken his beautiful world. Again he could see himself acting, doing whatever he felt he had to do, but beyond that he could see it all as though it were happening to someone in a book or a movie. He could almost hear his own voice as if it were in the third person. ‘“We’ll have to think of something, that’s all,” he said.’ And he supposed that this must be what people meant when they talked of grief. Yet when Brigid waked him, bringing him a cup of tea in bed, it seemed to have taken nothing out of her. Unburdening herself of her secret seemed to have restored all her native liveliness, in fact. When he got home that evening, he was astonished to see Cross waiting for him in the front room, and he knew from Cross’ manner that Brigid had made her peace with him. At any other time this would have made him happy, but now it merely seemed an irrelevance. As he saw Cross off, Cross said urgently, “You won’t think me interfering, Joe, but Brigid came to the office and told me about your little trouble. I guessed there was something upsetting her. I only wanted to say how sorry I am.’ Joe was amused at Cross’ delicacy, and touched that Brigid, for all her fierce pride, had humiliated herself so abjectly before him, but this didn’t seem to matter either. ‘I know, Jerry, I know,’ he said, squeezing Cross’ arm, but Cross was full of the subject. ‘It’s going to be terrible, however you arrange things,’ he said, ‘and I only want you to know that I’ll be delighted to do anything. Delighted! Because I have a great admiration for Brigid, Joe. You know that.’ Joe realized that by ways that could have been no great pleasure to her, Brigid had at last managed to pierce Cross’ defences. Being Cross, he was doing more than interceding for her. He was hiding the cheque on the mantelpiece. After supper Joe said to Brigid: ‘I’ve been thinking this thing over, dear, and I see only one way out. We have to bring the child here.’ ‘I’ve been thinking it over too, and I don’t see the necessity for that at all,’ she said hastily. ‘Cross thinks the same. To tell you the truth, I think ’twould be impossible for everybody.’ Joe could see exactly what she was thinking about. Now that the burden of secrecy had been lifted, she had fled to the opposite extreme of self-confidence. Only a wild outburst of self-confidence could have given her the courage to go to Cross at all. But with self-confidence she had regained all her old devious personality, and was plotting like mad to retrieve as much as possible from the wreck and avoid humiliating herself before the neighbours and before Joe’s decent, common working-class family. ‘Not impossible,’ he said. “Difficult, I grant you. We’ve made a good many friends on the estate, and it’s not going to make our position here any better. But others have had to do the same and worse.’ ‘I’t’s easier for a man than for a woman,’ Brigid said ruefully. ‘It’s harder for a woman because she does more to make the position she finds herself in,’ said Joe sternly. ‘It’s not easy for anybody. All the same, it doesn’t count compared with a child’s life.’ ‘And there’s your mother to be considered,’ she said. ‘Exactly. There’s Mother, and there’s Barbara and Coralie, and we know what they’ll think and say. They’ll make you pay, Brigid, and I’ll suffer for it. But that’s not the worst. The worst is that we may get the kid too late for her to be able to fit in. Still, bad as that is, it will be easier now than it would be in ten or fifteen years time.’ ‘I don’t know, Joe,’ Brigid said earnestly. ‘I cracked up on you before because I was trying to handle it on my own. I won’t crack up on you again, and I think there are a lot of things I can do without making ourselves miserable into the bargain.’ ‘Such as?’ ‘Well, it was really Jerry who suggested it—getting her over here to a decent home where we can keep an eye on her, taking her on holidays with Nance, and seeing that she goes to a good school when she’s old enough.’ ‘And I suppose Jerry offered to help?” ‘He did,’ she admitted. ‘He’s damn decent.’ ‘He is decent, said Joe. ‘All the same, he’s wrong. Dead wrong.’ Like many gentle souls, Joe had a streak of iron in him, and when he made up his mind about something he could be very obstinate. ‘Jerry is a bachelor. He doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. You can cut off a man or woman as a loss, and feel that maybe they’ll keep afloat, but you can’t do that to a child. A child is too helpless. And this time, it isn’t only you who have to live with them as well, and if anything happened that child, I’d be a murderer as well. I’ve got my faults, Brigid, but I’m not a murderer.’ A fortnight later they were flying in from the sea over Dublin, and Joe knew that Brigid was losing her nerve. Every moment seemed to leave her more panic-stricken. When they travelled into the city on the tall, bumpy, swaying bus, she kept silent, but in the hotel room she broke down. ‘Look, Joe, I can’t face it’ she said. ‘Now, Brigid, you’ve done things a great deal more difficult than this,’ he said comfortingly. ‘I haven’t, Joe,’ she said. ‘You don’t understand, I tell you. I can’t go down to Cork tomorrow and meet people I used to know, and start inventing excuses for coming back.’ ‘You don’t have to invent excuses,’ he said patiently. ‘You’re just here with your husband on a holiday—what’s wrong with that?’ ‘And with a two-year-old baby in my arms?’ she said bitterly. ‘I tell you, Joe, I don’t give a damn what happens the child. I’m not going down.’ She frightened Joe. It was as though behind this facade of a capital with its Georgian squares and flashy hotels and expensive restaurants there was a jungle of secrecy and panic. But he did not want Brigid to see how he felt about it. ‘Very well, dear,’ he said patiently. ‘I’ll go. I dare say your family can direct me.’ ‘I suppose they could,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But if you have any consideration for them, you’ll keep as far from them as you can.’ He knew it was unsafe to argue with her. She was close to hysteria or he would have said it was rather peculiar to have a foreigner searching in unfamiliar country for a child of this family who had already been neglected for two years. ‘Very well, dear,’ he said. ‘If you say so, I shall.’ The trip on the train to Cork was pleasant, and his only regret was that Brigid wasn’t there to share it with him and point out the places of interest: it seemed like the waste of a good excursion. The city itself seemed pleasant enough too, and he had a good view of the river and quays from his bedroom window. Downstairs, he talked to the hotel manager, who was big-boned, deep-voiced and amiable and threw himself into the business of getting Joe to his destination as though he had no other aim in life. ‘Throw’ seemed the word that suited him, for he literally heaved himself across the desk, looking at a map and studying a timetable, bellowed softly to members of the staff who might help, and even called in casual passers-by. This scared Joe who did not want his business made public too soon. It would be time enough for explanations when he returned to the hotel with a baby—a difficult moment enough, as even he realized. But the last ten miles of his journey seemed the most difficult of all. ‘It’s all right, Mr Coleman,’ said Joe. ‘I’ll hire a car.’ The hotel manager glanced at the clock in the hall and said in his deep voice: ‘You won’t hire any car. I’ll take an hour off after dinner and drive you.’ ‘That’s very kind of you,’ whispered Joe, ‘but it might be better if I did take a car. You see, it’s rather a delicate matter.’ ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to be inquisitive,’ Coleman said with a touch of resentment. ‘Don’t be silly!’ Joe said with a laugh. ‘You’re not being inquisitive. I haven’t anything to hide, and anyhow I’d have had to tell you sooner or later. Sit down for a moment and let me explain.’ The two men sat in a corner of the lounge and Joe explained. The hotel manager listened with a vague smile. ‘So far as I’m concerned, I can keep my mouth shut,’ he said. ‘But don’t be surprised if a lot of the staff know who you are already. If they don’t know tonight they’ll know tomorrow. They’ll also know who your wife is. This may seem a big city to you, but it’s not big enough for those who have to live in it. Mind,’ he added with a smile, ‘I wouldn’t let that disturb me too much either. Will I get a cot into your room?’ ‘Not tonight,’ said Joe, ‘I’ve tried to sort this thing out. It isn’t easy for a man, you know, but I don’t think it would be fair to the kid to bring her back tonight, particularly with no woman around. Even if Brigid was here it would be a shock. No, I thought I’d go to this house first, and let the kid get to know me before I bring her back.’ ‘Tomorrow I have the whole morning clear,’ said Coleman. ‘No, I didn’t mean it that way either,’ said Joe. ‘I can afford to hire a car. Damn it, having come all this way, I can’t be stopped by the hire of a car.’ ‘No reason you should unless you want to,’ Coleman said grufily. ‘I think you’re wise not to bring her back tonight though. I’ll see you in the lounge after dinner. I’d stick to the roast beef, if I were you.’ After dinner the two men set off in Coleman’s old car. After a few minutes Coleman spoke. ‘This isn’t an aspect of life you get much advice on when you go into the hotel business,’ he said in his good-humoured. way. ‘But, if you’ll excuse my being personal, Mr Saunders, you seem to me a rather unusual sort of man.’ ‘Do I?’ Joe asked in genuine surprise. ‘I should have said in my circumstances most men would have felt the same.’ ‘Felt the same, I’ve no doubt,’ said Coleman. ‘I’m not so sure they’d have acted the same, though. Naturally, the first thing I did when you told me your story was to ask myself what I’d have done in your place.’ ‘Yes?’ Joe said eagerly. ‘And I decided—don’t think me impertinent now!—that I’ think twice about it.’ ‘Don’t worry, old man,’ Joe said with a loud laugh. ‘I did. I thought three times about it, as a matter of fact.’ But those few words seemed to have cleared the air between them. They had passed the city boundaries and were driving along a river bank with a tree-lined walk at the other side of the water. The main road led along a smaller river wooded to its bank. Finally they reached a little village with a church and public-house where they went off on a by-road up the hill. They came out of it above the river and harbour, stopped to inquire their way, and drove slowly for some miles along a deserted upland road. It was darkening, and Coleman drove more carefully. There was a cottage on their right and two small children with bare feet were playing in the roadway outside, He stopped the car suddenly. ‘I have a feeling this is it,’ he said, and bellowed to the children: ‘Is this Mrs Ryan’s?’ ‘What’s that, sir?’ asked a little boy. ‘Mrs Ryan’s, I said.’ ‘’Tis sir.’ ‘And is this Marie?’ Coleman asked, pointing to the little girl who accompanied him. ‘No, sir, ’tis Martha,’ said the child. “Then where is Marie?’ Coleman asked, and suddenly a tall, rough-looking woman with rosy cheeks appeared by the white gatepost. Afterwards Joe thought he would never forget that first impression of her with the white gatepost and dark fuschia bushes, cut out against the sky. ‘Is this the gentleman from England I have?’ she called. ‘Marie is inside, gentlemen. Won’t you come in?’ Joe got out first and held out his hand. ‘I’m Joe Saunders, Brigid Healy’s husband,’ he said. ‘And this is Mr Coleman, the hotel manager from Cork. He was kind enough to give me a lift.’ ‘I was after giving up expecting ye,’ she said, showing her big teeth in a smile. ‘Come in, let ye! I’m afraid the house is in a mess, but ’tis only the children.’ ‘You don’t have to apologize, Mrs Ryan,’ Joe said. ‘I come of a large family myself,’ But even Joe’s large London family had not prepared him for the little cottage, even if the shadows inside gave little opportunity for deciding whether or not it was in a mess. An open door into the bedroom suggested a big bed that had not been made, and the walls of the kitchen were bare but for a grocer’s calendar inside the door. Sitting round the open fire were three other children whose faces he could scarcely see, but it was clear that the bare-legged two year old who roasted her feet before it was Brigid’s child. Suddenly he wondered what he was doing there. “This is Miss Healy’s little girl, gentlemen,’ said Mrs Ryan. ‘She’s the spit of her mother, but ye can’t see. I’ll light the lamp. I suppose ye’d like a cup of tea after yeer journey?’ ‘No, thanks, Mrs Ryan,’ said Joe. ‘We’ve only just had dinner. Besides, we won’t stay long. We thought we’d come back tomorrow morning for Marie, just to give you time to get her ready...Hullo, Marie, he said, taking the child’s hand. ‘I bet you don’t know who I am.’ ‘Hullo, Marie,’ Coleman said with casual amiability and took her hand as well. She looked up at them without expression and Joe suddenly recognized her resemblance to Brigid. That gave him a turn too. ‘Run out and play with Martha and Michael,’ Mrs Ryan shouted to the other boy in the room. ‘And bring Kitty along with you.’ Silently the two children got up and went out, closing the half door behind them. It was not as though they were frightened but as though they saw no reason for disobeying, and for some reason this struck Joe as even worse. He felt that a natural child should be curious, Mrs Ryan lit the lamp, squinting up at it. ‘Wisha, sit down, let ye,’ she said, pulling up two chairs and wiping the seats vaguely with her apron. ‘And how is Miss Healy? You’ll have to forgive me. I forget her married name.’ ‘Saunders,’ said Joe, sitting down and opening the little case he had brought with him. ‘She’s fine, Mrs Ryan. She probably told you we have a little girl of our own now. She wasn’t well or she’d have been here herself. I don’t want to rush you. These are a few clothes I brought, and perhaps you can tell me if they’ll fit.’ He passed the frock, overcoat, and hat to her and she held them to the light with a vague smile. Then she peered at the shoes. ‘Wisha, aren’t they lovely?’ she said. ‘Aren’t you the lucky girl, Marie? Ye’re sure ye won’t have the tea? It wouldn’t take me a minute to boil the kettle.’ ‘Certain, thanks,’ said Joe, who only wanted to get out of the house quick. He crossed to the half-door, and again he caught an image he felt he would never forget of the lamplight on the hedge and white-washed gatepost where four children were crowded together, talking in whispers. ‘Better come in now, he said with a laugh. ‘I bet you heard every word we said. Are they all yours, Mrs Ryan?’ ‘Ah, no, sir,’ she replied almost reproachfully. ‘We had no children of our own. ’Tis on account of my husband’s death I had to take them.’ The four children came in and stood fidgeting by the dresser, two little boys and two little girls, apparently well-fed if not well-dressed or clean, but somehow lacking all the spontaneity of other children. Joe took out a fistful of coins and distributed them. The children took the money meekly, without gratitude. ‘Well, Marie, he asked, stooping over the child on the stool, ‘how do you think you’re going to like me for a daddy?’ ‘She’s strange, Mrs Ryan said apologetically. ‘Most of the time she have plenty to say for herself.’ ‘I’ll bet she has,’ said Joe. ‘And in a couple of days she’ll be giving me cheek as well. Won’t you, old lady?’ They sat and talked for a few minutes longer. Then Joe said good night, kissed Marie and patted the other children on the head. It was already dark on the road, and he was glad of the headlights that made the green banks seem theatrical but concealed his face. ‘Well, I don’t know how you feel, but I’m ready for a drink,’ said Coleman. ‘A large one, at that.’ ‘What I should like is to buy a few toys for the other kids,’ said Joe. ‘Too late for that, I’m afraid,’ said Coleman. “The shops are shut until Monday. You might be able to pick up a few cheap toys in a sweet-shop, and a couple of bags of sweets. If you mean they won’t have the money long I’m inclined to agree with you.’ As they entered the hotel the tall night porter looked up from his evening paper and said, ‘Night, sir. Night, Mr Saunders,’ and already Joe knew that his business was being discussed. The waiter who brought them their drinks in the lounge seemed to know as well, but Joe had the idea that he approved. He might have been a father himself. He might even have known Brigid and Marie’s father. The pair of them might have sat drinking in this very lounge like any of the couples who sat there now. It was only the other side of the picture that he had been looking at that evening in a lonesome cottage on the hills. He felt very depressed. Next morning he was more cheerful. He woke to the sound of bells. He had never heard so many bells, or else they sounded louder in the hollow of the city. A pious people all right, he thought. On their way out of town he saw the well-dressed crowds on their way to Mass. In the first village they came to there was a large group outside the church and a similar one outside the public-house. The four elder children were waiting for them in the roadway, and as they approached, two of these rushed in to give warning. They had all been washed and two of them even wore boots. When they went into the cottage Marie was sitting stiffly on a low chair by the door, as though she had been glued there to keep her from soiling her new dress, and she looked up at them blankly and pointed to her shoes. ‘Look! Shoes!’ she said shrilly, and Joe, stooping to admire them, saw that they were too big. ‘We’ll get you properly fitted tomorrow, old lady,’ he said. He distributed the few presents he had managed to buy, shook hands with Mrs Ryan, and carried Marie to the car. The other children followed, and he shook hands with each in turn, and then laid his hand gently on each one’s head. Over the low wooden gate he could see the tall figure of Mrs Ryan, holding the doorpost and gazing up and down the deserted road. As the car started he turned to wave to the little group of children. They stood in the roadway, their presents clutched in their hands, and he saw that they were all weeping quietly. It seemed to him that they were not weeping as real children weep, with abandonment and delight, but hopelessly, as old people weep whom the world has passed by. He was the world and he had passed them by. He knew now why he had not dared to kiss any of them. If he had kissed them he could not have left them there. His first thought was to prevent Marie’s seeing them, but he realized that he needn’t have worried. She was leaning forward, enchanted, trying to touch her beautiful new shoes. Coleman drove with his eyes fixed on the winding roadway over the hills, and his fat sulky face was expressionless. ‘I wonder if you saw what I did?’ Joe said at last to break the silence, and Coleman stared at him despairingly. ‘I’m in dread I’ll never forget it,’ he said.