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won’t believe it until he sees it with his own eyes.’
    ‘Or hears it with his ears,’ said Venetia.
    Anna Marie was wistful. ‘Is it really nearly two years since our mother died?’
    She whispered her question, unwilling to upset her grandmother whom she’d grown inordinately fond of.
    ‘Yes,’ Venetia snapped. ‘Two years living on a farm.’
    ‘It’s not so bad.’
    ‘It’s not like London.’
    ‘There are no animals in London.’
    ‘There are lights. I like lights,’ Venetia countered.
    Anna Marie sighed. Sometimes she found it difficult to cope with her sister’s attitude. She loved the farm, loved her grandmother and loved the animals. Not that she often admitted the fact to Venetia.
    Their grandmother shouted up the stairs that they were ready to see the film show.
    ‘Get down here now or you won’t be going.’
    Anna Marie immediately set off for the stairs, pausing there to look at her sister.
    ‘Well? Are you coming or not?’
    Venetia sucked in her lips.
    Anna Marie breathed in deeply, fearing one of her sister’s rebellious moods might be coming on.
    Venetia sprang into sudden life. ‘You wouldn’t think I’d want to stay here would you? I’ll never want to stay here. I’ll tell you that for nothing. We’ll leave here. We’ll both leave here.’
    Anna Marie made no comment. She had no real wish to leave the farm and Ireland, but if Venetia ever did insist on them leaving, she knew she would not have the strength to resist.

Chapter Five
Magda 1929
    Snow began falling two days before Christmas. By morning it had thrown a thick blanket over a hushed neighbourhood. Just for once the old houses in Edward Street looked beautiful, like brides attired in wedding finery.
    Bridget Brodie’s heart was still as frozen as the weather and Magda still hadn’t found a pencil in the house, and she so badly wanted to draw a Christmas scene and write a Christmas message. The old crayons were fine for drawing pictures, but she considered writing was best done with a pencil.
    Magda had just finished getting the fire to light, when a blow from a chilblained hand flung her away from the feeble flames.
    ‘Bread! We need bread.’
    Aunt Bridget pointed at the ill-fitting door. ‘Will you git going now and stop staring at me like an ijit?’
    The door had twisted with age and barely reached the floor. Snow drifted through the gaps onto the flagstone floor where it melted, and turned into ice overnight.
    Magda was beginning to get the measure of her aunt, and although she knew what it might earn her, her eyes flared with loathing.
    Bridget saw the look. A face creased with care and cruelty became like an evil mask, all pity devoured by poverty; compassion drowned by selfishness.
    Her lips curled back from twisted teeth yellowed with nicotine.
    She raised her hand. ‘Don’t you look at me with yer evil eyes, you dark witch, you.’
    ‘A witch can put a curse on you,’ Magda growled.
    Her aunt looked at her dumbstruck – and it suddenly occurred to Magda that her aunt was superstitious; she actually believed her.
    The moment was short lived. ‘Bread!’
    A threepenny piece hit the side of her cheek.
    ‘It’s snowing again.’
    ‘Never mind the snow, you lazy little foreigner. What’s a bit of snow? The likes of me are used to it, and you should get used to it too.’
    ‘You never let me out other times.’
    ‘Less of your back chat!’
    ‘You’re only letting me out because it’s snowing.’
    ‘Well, the ungratefulness of the child!’
    ‘If I go out in this, then I’m going out other times too.’
    Picking up the same blanket that covered her at night, she wound it around her thin form. The blanket had replaced her coat, which Aunt Bridget had decided was too small.
    ‘Sure I’ll give it to the nuns down at the convent. They’ll give it to someone deserving they will.’
    The blanket was old, unwashed and rough against her skin. She didn’t care about its roughness, the ragged strips