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the people around her snuffling and crying. She concentrated on the blackbird singing on a bush, not wanting to hear those final parting words as Martin was reunited with her mother Helena.
    Back at the house afterwards she’d run upstairs to change, as the rain had soaked through her blouse. Liam stood at the front door welcoming their relatives and friends and neighbours to Fintra, thanking them for coming to his father’s funeral, organizing drinks and getting young Slaney Kavanagh, their cousin, to take the coats and umbrellas and put them away as the visitors laughed and joked. The men took hot whiskeys to warm themselves up, the women sipped glasses of amber-coloured sherry and ruby port.
    Ella washed her face, and brushed her hair, which the rain had made wavy. She took a few big deep breaths before rejoining them. Liam suggested she give Carmel a hand with the food. The guests ate everything she, Aunt Nance and Carmel put in front of them. Her cousins Constance and Teresa served the food, the others running in and out with plates and glasses and salt and mustard and cups of hot tea. Every now and then she caught Sean’s eye, or would find him standing near her protectively.
    ‘Are you all right Ella?’ asked her cousin Marianne, all concerned. ‘You look a bit tired.’
    ‘I’m fine.’ Ella nodded.
    ‘I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to Daddy,’ Tears welled up in her thirteen-year-old cousin Slaney’s eyes. Her fair wavy hair was pulled back into a controlling chignon that was already beginning to unravel.
    ‘Uncle Jack’s fine, Slaney!’ said Ella nodding in the direction of the corner, where her balding uncle, dressed in his best dark suit, stood with a bottle of Guinness in one hand busily discussing the merits of some racehorse with two other men.
    Slaney’s sister Kitty was sitting close by, on the arm of the couch, chatting to one of the neighbourhood farmers and his son. Her rich red hair cascaded down over her shoulders, her green eyes flashing as they always did when someone paid her attention. Her lips curved into a constant smile. Kitty didn’t believe in mourning and had put on an apple-green dress that she knew her uncle had liked on her.
    ‘Man-mad! Even at Uncle Martin’s funeral she’s flirting,’ sighed Slaney, raising her blue eyes to heaven, though a tone of admiration could be heard in her voice. Marianne pursed her lips, wishing that she hadn’t been burdened with such good-looking sisters, while Ella smiled, glad of the friendship and banter of her cousins.
    ‘Girls, what did I tell you, circulate!’ ordered Aunt Nance, interrupting them, her cheeks flushed with the heat of the room and with tending the oven and the fire. ‘That Scottish uncle wants another drop of whiskey, and Father Hackett has had nothing to eat yet, see if there’s any cold meat left in the kitchen for him. Go on now, Ella’s enough to be doing!
    ‘Are you all right pet?’ You know your daddy would be right proud of you, and how well everything’s gone. Martin’s had a grand send-off, thank God!’
    Ella didn’t trust herself to speak. Her Aunt Nance was always the one to hold her and comfort her. Her aunt squeezed her hand. ‘It’ll all be over soon, pet, honest it will. It doesn’t seem right, a young girl like yourself burying two parents, but then that’s God’s will. You know that you always have Jack and myself and the girls and Brian. We all care so much about you, we always have.’
    Ella hugged her aunt, relishing the comfort of the familiar smell of her lily of the valley cologne and warm skin.
    ‘I’m glad that the rogue Liam has come home. It’ll be good for you to have him around the place, and that wife of his seems a nice sort of girl. Martin was always worrying about him; you know he felt your mother’s death unsettled him. Anyways that’s all water under the bridge now and the two of them had made their peace, which is the main thing. The farm needs a