Two days later Brendan was waiting for Maeve when she finished work. She hadn’t seen her brother since Danny had rescued him. The light was fading into the usual sombre dusk, but he looked reasonably clean, and sober. The cut on his head was forming a blackish crust as it healed.
‘I’m going away for a wee while, Maeve.’
He raised his fingers to his scab, and she could see that his hand was shaking.
‘But where? Where will you go?’
‘Jimmy McNaught, you know, from below? He’s going to Dumfries to work on the railway.’
‘What do you know about railways?’
He laughed. ‘You don’t need to know much to be a labourer. Just to be Irish.’
She slumped against the factory wall. ‘What about Kate…and Mark Harris? They will be leaving soon.’
‘Aye, what about them? She’ll be going without my blessing
