Claire Keegan

was there any point in being alive without helping one another?

His mother, at the age of sixteen, had fallen pregnant while working as a domestic for Mrs Wilson, the Protestant widow who lived in the big house a few miles outside of town.

Now, he lived in the town with his wife, Eileen, and their five daughters.

Some nights, Furlong lay there with Eileen, going over small things like these.

He was touching forty but didn’t feel himself to be getting anywhere or making any kind of headway and could not but sometimes wonder what the days were for.

Did she ever imagine how her life would be if she had married another?

The blow was cheap but it was the first he’d heard from her, in all their years together.

he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another?

Whatever suffering he was now to meet was a long way from what the girl at his side had already endured, and might yet surpass.

Sometimes Furlong, seeing the girls going through the small things which needed to be done – genuflecting in the chapel or thanking a shop-keeper for the change – felt a deep, private joy that these children were his own.