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time and she knew that.
    ‘Come on, then,’ he said, and he hauled himself up onto the high step, taking her bag with him, and pulled her after him with his two hands.
    They turned down a narrow corridor and her father poked his head out of a side carriage and waved them in. The carriage was small, with dark wooden panels and cushions built into the seats themselves. There was room for six – three on opposite sides. Seated opposite her father and their older brother, Paddy Junior, was the gaffer, Mick Kelly, and next to him was his daughter, Carmel. Attracta, the plain-looking girl with a largerear, was there too. Aileen had noticed that the pair of girls had stuck together on the walk down.
    ‘Carmel, push up there and let Aileen sit in next to you,’ Mick Kelly told his daughter.
    Carmel was sitting opposite Paddy Junior, and from the way she was gazing across at her brother Aileen observed that she wanted to be sitting next to him. The handsome young man was looking intently out of the window, even though the train was still stationary.
    ‘Leave the girls where they are. Paddy, you get up and let your sister sit down.’
    Paddy Junior couldn’t get out of the carriage fast enough, and, followed by his younger brother, went and sat in another carriage with the rest of the crew. By the look that Carmel gave her as Aileen sat in her handsome brother’s seat, she could guess why. Paddy Junior was tall and broad and a younger version of his father, with a face that seemed chiselled by God out of smooth rock. Even his sister could see he was a head-turner. Poor Carmel had limp mousy hair that hung down the sides of her flat, mournful face like a pauper’s shroud.
    Almost immediately after he had left, a determined Carmel said, ‘I’d better go and find Michael,’ and started to move from her seat.
    ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ her father said. ‘Sit back down. We’ve ten hours ahead of us and I won’t lose that seat.’
    Carmel plonked back down next to Attracta, who looked equally horrified on her friend’s behalf that her beau had fled. Aileen thought that the two of them resembled stunned fish and she could not help but smile a little. She hoped the two girls wouldn’t notice, but was certain, as she turned her face towards the window, that they had.
    The train started with a jolt and a hiss.
    ‘We’re off,’ Paddy said.
    Aileen gazed out in wonder as the world sped by, the edge of the fields turning to a blurred line of midnight blue, the faint glitter of fires from inside houses dotted around the vast purple shadows of the Mayo hills.
    They saw the silhouette of a man standing out against a moonlit patch, watching the train pass, his face lit up with embers from his pipe.
    ‘There’s the Progressive Farmer,’ Paddy said.
    ‘How do you mean?’ Mick said, smiling already for the punch-line.
    ‘A man out standing in his own field.’
    ‘Well, that’s a good one, Paddy,’ Mick said. ‘That’s as good a one as ever I heard.’
    Aileen wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, but she laughed anyway – from happiness perhaps. As the train rocked her body from side to side, she closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against the rough wool of her father’s coat. The musty smell of stale sweat and woodsmoke made her feel safe, as if she was at once away having this strange adventure but also still at home. Carmel and her catty looks didn’t matter. She was with her father and brothers, and that was all that mattered. In moments she was asleep.

Chapter Six
    At Dublin Port, the crowd for the Glasgow boat was arranging itself into some sort of order before making its way down to the steerage part of the ship. Aileen was nervous of this stretch of the journey. Her brothers had warned her that this was the hardest part and, unlike at the train station, were in no hurry to get themselves on board. The third-class compartments were crowded, with no seating, and were next to the stalls transporting cattle to