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afternoon. All we could do was take them for a walk.’ Her voice faltered. ‘’Least they’re getting three meals a day and have somewhere decent to sleep. It’s good of St Hilda’s to have them.’
     
    Colm winning the ten pounds had been the opposite of good luck, Brenna thought after Nancy had gone and she was left in the dark, damp room with only Cara for company. Back in Ireland, life had been a struggle - the whole family living in one room and sleeping in another - but at least she’d been able to keep the place clean, do her own cooking, wash the clothes and hang them in the fresh air to dry. Colm had earned a regular wage and was allowed to bring home any fruit and vegetables that were going spare. They’d had meat for their Sunday dinner, even if it was only the cheapest cut. Any spare pennies left over went towards second-hand clothes for the lads. The future held no promise of better times ahead. This was how it would always be: scrimping and saving, struggling to make ends meet. Brenna had wanted better things for Colm and her lads, and Liverpool had promised this and more.
    But now she would have given anything to have the certainty and security of their old life back. She recalled the morning she, Cara and Colm had left the big house in Parliament Terrace and made their way to Stanhope Street where poor Paddy had used to live. The rain had stopped, thank the Lord, and a weak sun shone from a pale-blue sky. Her belly still ached from the birth and her legs were a bit shaky, but otherwise, she felt fine.
    ‘The landlord will surely let us have our Paddy’s house,’ Colm had said, as optimistic as ever. ‘Even if he won’t, it’ll be full of Paddy’s stuff that now rightly belongs to us.’ He was upset over his brother’s violent death, but too concerned about his wife and children to let it bother him right now.
    Fourteen Stanhope Street turned out to be a clean, stoutly built house with a big, bay window downstairs and a freshly varnished front door. Colm and Brenna exchanged hopeful looks. ‘How will we get in?’ Brenna asked. With Paddy gone, there’d be no one to answer the door.
    Colm knocked anyway and the door was opened almost immediately by a sharp-faced woman, as thin as a lath, wearing a black frock with a cameo brooch at the neck - Brenna had always yearned for such a brooch. The woman’s grey hair was dragged back in a sparse bun at the nape of her scraggy neck.
    ‘I understand this is Paddy Caffrey’s house,’ Colm said courteously. ‘I’m his brother, Colm.’
    ‘Then you understood wrong,’ the woman said in a voice as sharp as her face. ‘This is my house and Paddy Caffrey lodged here, that’s the truth of the matter. He shared a room with two other Irishmen. He told everyone he was going to live with his brother who’d be over from Ireland any day now.’
    Brenna felt bile rise in her throat. Paddy had been lying to them all the time. ‘Can we have Paddy’s belongings?’ she whispered. The things could be sold and perhaps raise enough to get them back to Lahmera. Colm’s job had already gone to another man: their cottage would have another tenant, but at least they’d be in a familiar place. There were people, friends, who would take them in until they were back on their feet.
    ‘What belongings?’ the woman sneered. ‘All he owned were the clothes on his back and a few ould books that I got sixpence for in the pawn shop - he owed two weeks’ board and lodgings when he got himself killed. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.’ She made to close the door, but Colm put his foot in the way.
    ‘But his job,’ he said urgently. ‘I thought our Paddy had a job with customs.’
    ‘Paddy Caffrey never did a day’s work in his life,’ the woman replied. Her face softened slightly when, for the first time, she noticed the tiny baby in Brenna’s arms. ‘He led you on the way he led everyone on. All he had time for was the horses, the dogs and a