Secrets and Shadows by Brian Gallagher Read Free Book Online

can get over to visit.’
    ‘Yes, she’s trying to organise her holidays.’
    ‘Good, good. A fine city, Liverpool,’ added Mr Pawlek, ‘when I first left Poland I worked there for a while.’
    ‘Really?’ said Grandma with interest.
    ‘Yes, I lived in Allerton and commuted to work in Birkenhead. Where does your daughter-in-law have to travel to?’
    Barry thought that Mr Pawlek was being a bit nosey, but Grandma answered readily.
    ‘Out past Aintree. She gets a bus there and back. Great little worker, Ellen.’
    ‘I’m sure she is,’ agreed Mr Pawlek. ‘Well, I mustn’t keep you. Nice to have met you, Mrs Malone. Barry.’
    ‘Sir.’
    ‘Lovely meeting you, Mr Pawlek,’ said Grandma.
    The drill teacher nodded politely in farewell, then headed off across the churchyard.
    ‘He’s a proper gentleman,’ said Grandma. ‘You’re lucky to have him, Barry.’
    ‘Yes,’ answered Barry, and he walked alongside his grandmother as they made for the churchyard gate. He said nothing more, knowing that Grandma was probably right. But still, just at the moment, somehow he didn’t feel lucky.

    Grace was shocked, even though she had tried to prepare herself. It was her first visit back to the North Strand since the night of the bombing, and now she and Ma were walking through their old neighbourhood. Dozens of houses had been demolished and damaged on the night of the raid, but more had since been razed to the ground because of their dangerous, bomb-damaged condition. And hundreds more homes couldn’t be lived in until repairs had been carried out. The summer sun shone down onto streets that had been cleared of rubble by now, but Grace couldn’t help butfeel that the neighbourhood as she knew it was changed forever.
    It had been a strange few days in general. Grace and Ma had been to a Mass for those who had died in the air raid, and the ceremony had been attended by the Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera, and other members of the government. The Army Band had played, and Grace had felt important to be present as a member of the North Strand community. At the same time she felt really sad about neighbours who had been killed, and a little guilty about enjoying the band and the sense of occasion.
    On a brighter note, Uncle Freddie hadn’t tried to get any friendlier with Ma, and had missed yesterday’s trip to the Hollow in the Phoenix Park. He had been called in to work overtime as Dublin Corporation went flat out to finish its new housing scheme in Cabra, so that people displaced from the North Strand could be housed.
    Grace wished that she and Ma could have had one of the new houses. For years they had had a joke between them – going back to when Grace was a toddler – that a fancy house near the strand in Sutton was ‘Grace’s house’, and that she would live in it when she was grown up. Now she would have been delighted to take one of the more modest houses being finished in Cabra. Priority was given to larger families, however, and she and Ma would have to stay in Granddad’s until Ma could find somewhere else.
    Grace had enjoyed the trip to the Hollow with Granddad and Ma. Granddad had even treated her to a pink fizzy drink at the park entrance – though it still seemed a bit strange to hear a brassband playing jolly tunes, when only a week before so many people had been killed in the same city.
    Now that they could see again the devastation of the North Strand the contrast seemed even more jarring, and Grace sensed that Ma was upset as they walked through the shattered neighbourhood. She squeezed her mother’s hand and looked at her. ‘Are you OK, Ma?’
    ‘Yes…yes, I’m all right, love.’
    Grace slipped her arm around her mother’s waist as they walked along. It was the first time she ever felt responsible for her mother, and it was strange to have their normal roles reversed. They reached the door of Mrs Murray’s house, an old friend and neighbour of Ma’s, and they halted.
    ‘I’ll just pop