Some nights, Furlong lay there with Eileen,
going over small things like these. - P11
It would be the easiest thing in the world to lose everything, Furlong knew. Although he did not venture far, he got around – and many an unfortunate he‘d seen around town and out the country roads. The dole queues were getting longer and there were men out there who couldn‘t pay their ESB bills, living in houses no warmer than bunkers, sleeping in their overcoats. Women, on the first Friday of every month, lined up at the post-office wall with shopping bags, waiting to collect their children‘s allowances. And farther out the country, he‘d known cows to be left bawling to be milked because the man who had their care had upped, suddenly, and taken the boat to England. Once, a man from St Mullins got a lift into town to pay his bill, saying that they‘d had to sell the Jeep as they couldn‘t get a wink of sleep knowing what was owing, that the bank was coming down on them. And early one morning, Furlong had seen a young schoolboy drinking the milk out of the cat‘s bowl behind the priest‘s house. - P13
The times were raw but Furlong felt all the more determined to carry on, to keep his head down and stay on the right side of people, and to keep providing for his girls and see them getting on and completing their education at St Margaret‘s, the only good school for girls in the town. - P14
|