Chapter Sixteen
There was something niggling at Rafferty’s brain, but he couldn’t pin it down. What could it be? But for all that he kept pressing his mind, he came up with nothing. Of course, it didn’t help that he couldn’t look forward to peaceful evenings. Cyrus showed no sign of running out of either steam or bible quotations and he was still assailing Rafferty’s eardrums every evening and giving him tea poisoning every morning.
He’d got so desperate that he’d even gone over to his Ma’s, with his tail between his legs after his lodger stunt, to see if he couldn’t talk her into an exchange of lodgers, but she wouldn’t play ball. ‘Sure and why should I discommode them all when they’ll be packing to go home soon enough?’
‘Because I ask it of you.’
His Ma smiled that smile that, for al
