Ancient Appetites Read Online Free PDF Page A

was no warmth or sound from the darkness within. The O'Malleys must have been evicted. That room would be filled soon enough by some other desperate bunch. Some of these rooms housed as many as twenty people.
    He reached his family's door, and knocked before opening it. There was only one candle lit, and his mother sat by the light, darning a hole in the elbow of a jumper. The rickety wooden chair scraped on the floor as she stood up.
    'Francis, pet! You're home! Oh, praise be to God, you're home!'
    She was always like that. Stating the obvious – and then thanking God for it.
    'Shay! Francie's home!' she cried as she rushed over to give her youngest child a smothering hug.
    'Can't I see that with my own eyes, Cathy?' came the answer from across the room.
    His father stood up from his place by the small cast-iron stove and came over, giving Francie an excuse to extricate himself from his mother's embrace. Shay looked his son in the eye and held out his hand. It still made Francie proud, to have his da shake his hand like he was a grown man. Francie was almost as tall as him now, tall enough up to see his da's bald spot under the thinning brown hair.
    But he could see the curiosity in his father's gaze too. Shay knew his son had broken rules to be here.
    'Have a seat, son,' he said. 'Sit down there and have some tea. The kettle's just boiled.'
    'Look at the state of you!' Cathy scolded her son. 'Is it swimmin' in the mud you were?'
    Taking a damp cloth, she cleaned up his bloody elbow and then wiped as much of the mud from his shirt and trousers as she could until he squirmed. Then she got on with making the tea.
    'Aren't they missin' yeh at the stables?' his father asked, giving him the shrewd eye.
    Francie shrugged.
    His mother fussed about, putting tea leaves in the teapot and pouring in the water. She made a good cup of tea, did Ma. Francie sat down at the table with his parents, sipping the hot, milky tea and taking a look around to see what had changed. Nothing much. They had neighbours who lived in worse conditions. But the room was still sparse: a threadbare rug on the bare floorboards, the stove in one corner, the table in another. There were no curtains on the window, but it was so dirty on the outside that it didn't matter. And there was the trunk that held most of the rest of their possessions, which also doubled as a bench when some of the neighbours came round for a session. The folded blankets in another corner would make the beds that his folks and older sisters slept in.
    'Where are the girls?' he asked.
    'Away working,' his da replied.
    'They both got placed in houses,' his ma added. 'Chambermaids. We don't see so much of them any more. Peggy's all the way out in Dundrum.'
    Francie was disappointed that nobody had seen fit to let him know.
    'What brings you out, son?' his father asked.
    He was a lean man with a worn, ruddy face and had little patience for prattle when something had taken his interest. Francie took a breath. He'd been dying to tell them the news, but it was nice to just sit there and talk about the little stuff.
    'You said to tell you if anything important happened up at the house,' he began. 'Anything like . . . y'know. Interestin'.'
    'Yeah, so?' his father nodded insistently.
    'Well, it's the first son. Master Marcus. He's dead. Was out mountain climbing and fell off, they sez. There's goin' to be a huge funeral; deffiney some time next week – it looks like Saturday, but they're not sure yet. They won't announce it for a couple of days.'
    'That's terrible,' his ma gasped, her hand to her mouth. 'God help his poor mother.'
    'His poor mother's in her grave these past eight years, woman,' Shay snapped. 'No doubt she'll be glad of his company. What else, son? There's more, isn't there?'
    Francie bit his lip and reached into his pocket. Taking the folded paper from inside his shirt, he laid it on the table. The expression on his face was a mixture of excitement and fear. He was even trembling a