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evening at tea she told her mother and Rose the story. They were interested at first in the news that Nancy had been dancing two Sunday nights in succession with George Sheridan, but they became far more animated when Eilis told them about the rudeness of Jim Farrell.

“Don’t go near that Athenaeum again,” Rose said.

“Your father knew his father well,” her mother said. “Years ago. They went to the races together a few times. And your father drank in Farrell’s sometimes. It’s very well kept. And his mother is a very nice woman, she was a Duggan from Glenbrien. It must be the rugby club has him that way, and it must be sad for his parents having a pup for a son because he’s an only child.”

“He sounds like a pup all right and he looks like one,” Rose said.

“Well, he was in a bad mood last night anyway,” Eilis said. “That’s all I have to say. I suppose he might think that George should be with someone grander than Nancy.”

“There’s no excuse for that,” her mother said. “Nancy Byrne is one of the most beautiful girls in this town. George would be very lucky to get her.”

“I wonder would his mother agree,” Rose said.

“Some of the shopkeepers in this town,” her mother said, “especially the ones who buy cheap and sell dear, all they have is a few yards of counter and they have to sit there all day waiting for customers. I don’t know why they think so highly of themselves.”

Although Miss Kelly paid Eilis only seven and sixpence a week for working on Sundays, she often sent Mary to fetch her at other times—once when she wanted to get her hair done without closing the shop and once when she wanted all the tins on the shelves taken down and dusted and then replaced. Each time she gave Eilis two shillings but kept her for hours, complaining about Mary whenever she could. Each time also, as she left, Miss Kelly handed Eilis a loaf of bread, which Eilis knew was stale, to give to her mother.

“She must think we’re paupers,” her mother said. “What would we do with stale bread? Rose will go mad. Don’t go there the next time she sends for you. Tell her you’re busy.”

“But I’m not busy.”

“A proper job will turn up. That’s what I’m praying for every day.”

Her mother made breadcrumbs with the stale bread and roasted stuffed pork. She did not tell Rose where the breadcrumbs came from.

One day at dinnertime Rose, who walked home from the office at one and returned at a quarter to two, mentioned that she had played golf the previous evening with a priest, a Father Flood, who had known their father years before and their mother when she was a young girl. He was home from America on holidays, his first visit since before the war.

“Flood?” her mother asked. “There was a crowd of Floods out near Monageer, but I don’t remember any of them becoming a priest. I don’t know what became of them, you never see any of them now.”

“There’s Murphy Floods,” Eilis said.

“That’s not the same,” her mother replied.

“Anyway,” Rose said, “I invited him in for his tea when he said that he’d like to call on you and he’s coming tomorrow.”

“Oh, God,” her mother said. “What would an American priest like for his tea? I’ll have to get cooked ham.”

“Miss Kelly has the best cooked ham,” Eilis said, laughing.

“No one is buying anything from Miss Kelly,” Rose replied. “Father Flood will eat whatever we give him.”

“Would cooked ham be all right with tomatoes and lettuce, or maybe roast beef, or would he like a fry?”

“Anything will be fine,” Rose said. “With plenty of brown bread and butter.”

“We’ll have it in the dining room, and we’ll use the good china. If I could get a bit of salmon, maybe. Would he eat that?”

“He’s very nice,” Rose said. “He’ll eat anything you put in front of him.”

Father Flood was tall; his accent was a mixture of Irish and American. Nothing he said could convince Eilis’s mother that she had known him or his family. His mother, he said, had been a Rochford.

“I don’t think I knew her,” her mother said. “The only Rochford we knew was old Hatchethead.”

Father Flood looked at her solemnly. “Hatchethead was my uncle,” he said.

“Was he?” her mother asked. Eilis saw how close she was to nervous laughter.

“But of course we didn’t call him that,” Father Flood said.