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voices in the hall and the sound of the front door opening and closing.
    â€˜I don’t think he was so keen on the Gaelic ones. He probably thought I’d joined the other side.’
    â€˜Where will you live?’
    â€˜I can stay here as long as I need to. They don’t throw church widows out on the street. It’ll take them some time to find someone new. There’s a pension as well. And enough money to see you through university, so you don’t need to worry.’
    â€˜Why don’t you come with me to Belfast? We could share a flat.’
    â€˜I don’t belong in Belfast, Naomi. I’d only be in the way. You’ve got your own life now. I’ve been thinking of moving in with your grandparents – they’re both getting on now. And they could do with someone to help out in the shop.’
    She stands on the other side of the desk in her black dress and cardigan and for some reason I remember her wedding photograph – the white dress, the wild roses in her hair. Now it feels as if time is arching round her, waiting to reclaim her, and I don’t know what to do to help her, how to break through the accepted pieties which always governed our lives in that house.
    â€˜My father was a good swimmer....’
    The words tremble like motes in the dusty silence of the room as she stares over my shoulder through the window. A long grey hair curls on the collar of her cardigan.
    â€˜ The currents can be treacherous.’
    The front bell rings and she turns towards the door, then hesitates. ‘Your father was tired, Naomi. Maybe he just couldn’t struggle any more.’
    As the door closes I sit on, let my hands brush the grain of the wood, and then I too go back to serving tea and receiving sympathy.
    There are more people at the funeral than I could have imagined. People I don’t know, representatives of different organizations and interests, a road of black-suited mourners following the cortège to the church between hedgerows flecked with white. It is the first time I have seen the church full – even the parish priest attends, and speaks kindly to my mother. But it is a relief when it’s all over, the last cup and saucer dried and stored away in cupboards, the final mourner woken from his slumber and gone. My mother puts on the radio but she keeps the volume so low that it’s almost inaudible, and we sit in the kitchen and talk only of small things. To my surprise she produces a bottle of what looks like communion wine and fills two glasses. We try to drink it, our faces mirroring each other’s grimaces, and then we toss it in the sink, throw back our heads and laugh. The sound fountains up through the empty house and suddenly falls back silently about our heads.
    That night as I lie in my bed and listen to the shuffle of the sea I hear her voice singing softly, and when I put on my dressing gown I go downstairs and find her sitting by the stove warming milk. The sink still wears its red stain like a birthmark. She makes us milky coffee and we sit cupping it in both hands. Her hair is down, the grey tresses coiled about her shoulders. She turns on the radio and there is the sound of a voice simmering into passion, but as I watch her sip from her cup it is not the voice I want to hear.
    â€˜Can I brush your hair?’
    She smiles and sets the cup on the table, points to her bag on the sideboard. Taking the brush, I start to move it gently through the coarsening strands. I turn off the radio.
    â€˜Will you sing to me?’
    â€˜What would you like?’
    â€˜One of the old songs you used to sing.’
    I half-remember the tune, the sound of words I do not understand, as it slowly fills the room. And then I see it again, the white sliver of scar on her scalp and when I touch it with the tip of my finger she laughs and jokes that I’ll be wanting her to tell the story about getting knocked down and the presents from