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the back.
    Thomas Grogan, whose unofficial name was Laughing Boy, slept in solitary splendour in the kitchen. He was special. Not only had he survived a bombing raid without so much as a scratch, he had
taken the place of John and Sal’s lost boys. Unlike the Higgins brood, he was blond, with a mass of curls and long-lashed blue eyes. Spoilt by too many women, he expected his own way and
usually got it, though toys and games were few and far between in this impoverished household. He knew one thing; not for all the tea in China would he swap this loving, noisy family.
    It was a Saturday night in September when John Higgins declared that war was about to begin. All were squashed into the parlour, some on beds, others on the floor. As usual, there was a jug of
beer fetched from the outdoor licence shop, some chips to share, John’s melodeon standing by for the singing. ‘Frank came for her,’ announced John gravely. ‘So poor Dot
didn’t even have the time to collect all her things. She’s away just now to the village to start a new life, and it’s luck we wish her, indeed it is.’
    The children were silent. They had heard the tales of Ernest Barnes’s dislike for Catholics. And now, someone had told Mr Barnes that his son was about to become a Catholic in order to
marry one. And that particular Catholic lived here in number 4 Prudence Street. Several pairs of eyes were fixed on Rachel, the intended of Frank Barnes. She sat in silence, a cloud of black curls
surrounding a perfect, oval face. Although she had not begun to weep, her lower lip trembled slightly.
    ‘I wonder who told him?’ asked Sal. She touched her husband’s arm. ‘After all, doesn’t everyone know what a bigot he is? It would have to be a troublemaker,
so.’
    ‘Sure he’s not on his own,’ replied John, ‘for there are many Orange Lodgers who would enjoy causing this type of bother.’ He looked again at Rachel, whose
fiancé had just removed his poor, ill-treated mother from the arena across the street. ‘Frank’s a good man,’ he said softly. ‘Aye, no matter what the carryings-on
might become, he will stand by both you and his mammy.’
    Rachel closed her eyes, wished that it could all be over, that she might raise her eyelids and be up on the moors with Frank and his mother in that sweet little shop. ‘Why do people fight
about Jesus?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t it all the same? Didn’t Jesus come for the whole of mankind to open the gates?’
    John smiled sadly. ‘Ah, now there we have the pure truth. And we should all see it.’ He remembered the ferocity of priests back home in Dublin, their insistence that only Catholics
would enter the kingdom. ‘Faults on both sides,’ he declared, ‘for aren’t some of us as bad as some of them? We should fool them all and become fast friends, Catholic,
Protestant, whatever.’
    ‘True,’ replied his plump, blond-haired wife. ‘And there’s none of us perfect.’
    ‘Frank’s dad will go worse,’ said Rachel. ‘If he hears Frank is on the turn – oh, God – he’ll be out of his mind altogether.’
    ‘Then he’ll wear out no shoe-leather,’ answered John, ‘for his journey to madness will be a short one. Many’s the time I’ve seen him demented. I recall him
getting holy water, spitting in it then pouring it down the grid.’
    ‘He put the Mother of God in his front window,’ said Sal, ‘a great big picture with glasses, a beard and a moustache. ’Twas a terrible sight, but.’
    It began then, the rumbling seeds of laughter that pervaded this house on a regular basis. Sal rocked back and forth, young ones rolled about the floor, John opened his mouth and released a loud
guffaw. The situation was made worse, of course, by the fact that their glee, attached to mental images of a bearded virgin, was monumentally naughty.
    ‘Ah, ’twas a terrible thing,’ moaned Sal, collapsing against her husband’s shoulder, ‘because, you see, it was a desperate painting