Page 133 of The Missing Sister

His Greek philosophers had plenty to say on that score. But for once, Ambrose preferred to think for himself.

As the clock struck midnight, Ambrose crossed himself out of habit. James was right: they must trust the O’Reillys to be the reliable and steady cradle that Mary needed until she was older – and if fate took a hand he could step in sooner.

‘I wish I’d lived in the days of the War of Independence against the British,’ Bobby said as he and Merry walked across the fields from Clogagh to home. Her little brother Bill, who had started school last autumn, was following on behind, holding on to the hand of Bobby’s little sister Helen, a quiet, shy girl who had Bobby’s colouring, but none of his anger.

‘Then you might have been shot, Bobby Noiro,’ Merry replied as she watched him stop suddenly. His latest game was shooting stones from his slingshot, pretending he was something called a ‘volunteer’.

‘One day, I’ll show you the gun my granddad used to kill the British colonists,’ he said as he caught up with her.

‘What’s a colonist?’ she asked him, just to test whether he really knew.

‘Britishers who stole countries for themselves. My granny told me,’ he said importantly.

Merry sighed and shook her head. As Bobby had grown, so had his aggressionandhis hatred for the British. And as she knew Ambrose came from a British family originally, even if they had arrived here hundreds of years ago, which really made him Irish anyway, she didn’t like it when Bobby gave her the chat about the British being evil.

‘Bang!’ he shouted suddenly. ‘Got yer!’

Merry looked on horrified as he started taking shots at the cows in the O’Hanlons’ field.

‘Stop that, Bobby!’

‘’Tis just target practice, Merry,’ he protested as she pulled him away from the cows, who were lowing in distress. Helen had started to cry and looked genuinely frightened. ‘They’re for the slaughter soon anyway.’

‘You can’t be hurting creatures for sport,’ she reprimanded him, taking Helen in her arms and grabbing Bill’s hand. ‘There’s no reason for it.’

‘’Tis what the British did to us,’ he muttered darkly, but he moved away from the cows and walked next to her the rest of the way.

Merry knew it was best not to talk to him once he went down this path. In the years that they’d been at school together, she’d learnt he was a boy whose moods could change like lightning. Even though the rest of their class barely acknowledged him anymore, due to his violent attacks if the boys were playing football in the playground and someone called his tactics ‘foul’, Merry still saw a different side to him when they were alone. In the classroom, he was the only one who was up to her reading standard and took an interest in the world beyond their small farming community. Bobbywantedto learn like she did, and that bond, and seeing the gentler side that the others didn’t, gave Merry hope that Bobby would grow out of his bad behaviour. Besides, she felt sorry for him, what with him having no friends and having to be the man in his family because he’d no daddy.

She would never forget the day he’d cried like a baby on Merry’s shoulder. His dog, Hunter, had been shot by mistake by a neighbouring farmer out after rabbits. He’d crowed in delight when the farmer’s pigsty was mysteriously set alight a few days later.

‘“An eye for an eye” is what the Bible says, Merry,’ Bobby had concluded, even though she’d endlessly tried to explain that Hunter’s shooting had been an accident.

Yet however strange and sometimes downright cruel Bobby was, Merry knew she was his only friend, and she couldn’t help her heart going out to him.

What made it worse was that Katie, now thirteen, had left school last Christmas, declaring herself ‘bored of learning’.

‘Besides, what with Ellen away and married, and Nora working up at the Big House during the shooting season and when the family are there in the summer, I’m the eldest girl and Mammy needs my help at home,’ Katie had said.

Bobby had been scared of Katie, who always said exactly what she thought, so now it was just Merry and the little ones who walked home with him.

Since leaving six months ago, Katie never read anymore and was only interested in putting her hair up in different styles, or listening to loud music by someone called Elvis on the radio Daddy had bought a year ago. She and Nora often practised new dances together in the kitchen, and Merry felt left out, even though Katie insisted she was still her best friend.

‘And I don’t like you spending so much time with Bobby Noiro,’ she’d said to Merry. ‘Your man is mad as a box of frogs.’

‘No, he isn’t, he just has a vivid imagination, ’tis all,’ Merry had defended him, but inside, part of her agreed with her sister. She’d found that the best way to calm him when he got into one of his moods was to tell him a story. She’d been telling him Greek myths and legends from the book Ambrose had once given her for Christmas. While Bobby enjoyed the violent tales of gods wreaking vengeance on other gods most, Merry’s favourite was that of the Seven Sisters, as she was one of seven siblings herself.

‘You know that the IRA stored arms in my family’s barn during the revolution,’ Bobby continued as they walked. ‘My granny told me they were always gone by morn. She hates the British and so do I,’ he added, just in case she hadn’t understood from the thousands of times he’d told her before.

‘Bobby, we shouldn’t hate anyone. The Bible says that—’ Merry began.

‘I don’t care what the Bible says. The British Protestants have ruled over our country for too long. They stole our lands, treated us like peasants and starved us! Granny says in the North they still do.’ He turned to Merry, his black hair grown so long it blew in the wind, and his heavy dark eyebrows fierce over his blue eyes. ‘You would think that any good god wouldn’t have made us suffer like that, wouldn’t you?’

‘No, but to be sure, He had his reasons. And look! Ireland’s a republic now, Bobby. We’re free!’ she said.

‘But the English are still here, in the country that should be ours,allours, even the North.’

‘The world isn’t perfect, is it? Besides, take a look at where we live,’ she said, turning round and stretching out her arms. ‘’Tis beautiful!’