Chapter Forty-Three
Charlie’s distress – the Captain and the cook – Charlie’s history lesson – the Mannanán mac Lir – Gladys finds a clue
In the tiny cell, Charlie paced back and forth frowning with what Gladys hoped was deep thought. “Hope is a wonderful thing,” her aunt had always said to Papa when the old man was down. It never helped. Papa had just gone on with his dull, joyless drinking. He never beat or mistreated Gladys. He simply woke with the sun, did his job until evening, then drank until he slept. Each bottle of cheap gin had brought him closer to his lost wife until finally he was with her again. That was how Auntie Madge had described the old man’s last years. It seemed almost poetic when she put it like that. But then, if Auntie Madge trod in a horse’s business, all she wo
