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and fiddled with the knob until the racing and football results were coming through loud and clear.
    That night Agnes went around to her mother. She had to tell someone. She recounted the story as her mother was ironing her father’s shirts. Throughout the story her mother barely looked up. When Agnes had finished, she awaited some gem of advice or even sympathy from her Ma. Slowly her mother looked up, and in her Ma’s eyes Agnes saw a surrendered spirit.
    ‘Well, love, you’ve made your bed - now lie in it!’ said her Ma.
    Agnes never told anyone again, but over time she learned how to avoid the beatings and she also established an unspoken but well-understood law with Redser. She did this with a look, the way only a woman can, and the look said: ‘I can take it ... but don’t ever touch my children.’ Redser never did.

Chapter 5
     
    THE MAY SUNSHINE CUT LIKE A BLADE down Dublin’s Moore Street, the fishwives cursed the swarming flies, and Agnes Browne sat by her stall and reflected on the three months that had passed since Redser’s death. Her first Easter as a widow had come and gone. She now collected her weekly pension along with her fuel voucher for two free bags of turf. The children had settled a bit, although Mark seemed to be uneasy, fidgety - ‘a bee up his arse’ her mother would have called it, maybe it was the ...
    ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ a voice cut across her reflection. It was Marion, carrying two mugs of bovril.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Your thoughts, a penny for them ... you were miles away.’
    ‘Yeh ... Mark!’
    ‘What about him?’
    ‘He’s not himself.’
    ‘Is he sick? Has he a temperature?’
    ‘Ah no, he’s as healthy as a pup. No, it’s somethin’ else.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I don’t know, I’m tellin’ yeh. If I knew I wouldn’t be worried, would P Look grab yer woman, she’s lookin’ at your bananas!’
    ‘Here, hold me mug.’ Marion hurried over to her stall where a ‘lady’ was indeed examining Marion’s wares.
    ‘Can I help you, love?’
    ‘Just looking, thanks.’
    ‘Oh they love that, they do.’
    The woman looked at Marion who was barely visible on the other side of the stall.
    ‘I beg your pardon?’ she asked.
    ‘Bananas, they love it when you look at them.’
    The woman held the stare, not knowing how to answer Marion’s statement. She blinked and went back to the bananas. She picked up a bunch of six, turned them this way and that, and then replaced them.
    ‘They look a bit pale,’ she remarked.
    ‘Yeh,’ answered Marion. ‘Ah they’re probably dizzy, they had a rough crossing from Jamaica.’
    The woman stared again at Marion, then moved on awkwardly. Marion scurried back to Agnes and took her bovril back.
    ‘You do scare them off!’ said Agnes.
    ‘Ah me arse! Either she wants bananas or she doesn’t, I’m not going to play twenty bleedin’ questions! She was pokin’ them and squeezin’ them - they’re bananas not mickeys, they don’t get any better if you squeeze them!‘
    The two woman erupted in laughter.
    ‘Ah Marion, you’re a tonic!’
    They both sipped their bovril and watched the passing shoppers. Marion turned to Agnes and was about to speak, but stopped, as if she was trying to find the words.
    Agnes waited. ‘What is it?’ she blurted out finally.
    ‘What do you mean?’ Marion asked innocently.
    ‘What were you goin’ to say?’
    ‘Nothin‘.’
    ‘Yeh were, Marion, now what was it?’
    Marion prepared to speak and Agnes waited. ‘Do you miss it?’ Marion asked finally.
    ‘What ? Miss what?’
    ‘Ah yeh know ... “It”!’
    ‘The quare thing?’
    ‘Yeh, the quare thing!’
    Agnes thought for a moment, and took a sip of bovril.
    ‘Nah.’
    ‘Are yeh serious, not even a little bit?’
    ‘Nope, not even a teeny bit ... What’s t’bleedin’ miss? The smell of chips and Guinness being breathed all over yeh ... his chin like bleedin’ sandpaper scrapin’ off a yer shoulder and neck ... and then the wait