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little and was dead.

    For Mary's mother it was almost the end. The girl herself seemed almost too numbed by what had already occurred to be able to take in this latest tragedy, and her mother knew that Mary needed her strength. Indeed, it was that thought alone - that Mary needed her mother's strength - which kept Mrs Miller from plunging into madness and hysteria.
    Instead she offered up increasingly bitter prayers to her Lord God and would receive mourners, many of whom were more interested in the condition of the daughter, with a smile like a bar of iron. Mother and daughter came closer and closer together during the arrangements for the funeral, the aftermath of the burial and the approaching birth. Tom could not be contacted, having apparently gone to the far north with a lumber squad, but Mrs Miller hoped that he would not come home in any case; not, at least, until the baby was born. She had forsaken her needlework altogether, but would still make up one of her famed herbal remedies whenever anyone asked her to. Fewer and fewer people did.
    They had money enough to live on, she told Mary. Mary herself sat her exams, did poorly, but had her father's death taken into account come the final marking. She stayed at home all the time after that, and so was safe from the few wild and cruel rumours that flew around. Her father had committed suicide, it was said by some, and had done so because of the shame of his daughter's pregnancy. The lad whoever he was - was to blame, said some, running away from his responsibilities. Then people remembered Matty Duncan, remembered the small witchy girl who had survived a drowning and who had sent a fireball on Matty to destroy him. Matty's father was the source of these new pieces of evidence. Mary was all bad luck, some agreed. But Matt Duncan shook his head. Luck did not enter into it. She had power: power over the elements, perhaps even power over her own brother and father. The bitter-cold mornings spent shopping in the town were enlivened by these increasingly speculative discussions, while all around Cars den was decaying and altering, as the boards went up across another shop's windows, wire mesh across the newsagent's, and the snooker hall closed down for ever.

    Sandy was born in the middle of September. When she was released from hospital and was home, one of the first things Mary did was to take the tiny boy to his grandfather's still fresh graveside in the town's cemetery. She held him in her arms and looked at the gravestone of shining grey and blue marble. Her mother stood beside her, a hand on her shoulder, and no tears were shed while the sun shone overhead and the baby lifted his face to the sky to gaze at the brightness. Crows chattered in the distance. The baby realised their presence and searched for a movement. He frowned when there was none. Afterwards, they walked back to the house in silence. The past had been somehow erased. The future could begin.

1985

Sandy

1

    'One of those,' he said, and the man's plump hand fished in the glass jar for one.

    'On the house, Sandy,' said the man, handing it to him and reaching over the crowded counter to ruffle the boy's unwilling hair. 'But don't tell your pals, mind, or they'll all be in here shouting about discrimination.' The man winked.
    'And don't tell your mother. You know what she's like. I'm not giving you charity.'

    Sandy smiled shyly. He was embarrassed by his standing as Mr Patterson's favourite. He knew that behind the action lay real pity for him. Mr Patterson was good that way; everyone said so. The old and the young women discussed him in the street with string bags full of shopping weighing from their arms like pendulums. They called Mr Patterson 'sweet' and 'a treasure'. Mr Patterson was a bachelor and owned the Soda Fountain, which was Carsden's sweet shop.
    He also cut hair in a tiny room at the back of the shop whenever anyone asked him to. He cut Sandy's hair sometimes, and would take great care