Field of Blood

Paddy wasn’t even in the living room proper before the first industrial-sized baking tray of gammon rolls came past her nose. She managed to resist, saying No thanks, she’d just eaten as the bearer pressed her for the second time. A delicate white hand darted out over her shoulder, taking a roll and giggling a thank you. She turned to see her sister Mary A

Mary A

“Dad,” said Paddy, as Mary A

“Your mother gave it to me.”

“He looks very swish,” said Trisha, brushing an imaginary speck from his lapel.

A man next to them who had been at school with Sean’s dad leaned over to Con. “Are you selling nylons?”

The gathered company laughed at the weak joke and Con joined in, not uncomfortable with his position in the pecking order. Mary A

“Well,” Trisha bristled, small-mouthed and angry as ever, “you’re hardly a fashion plate yourself.”

And Con laughed away at that one as well.

II

An hour of small talk with a hundred relatives later and the singers were organizing their turns in the corner of the room. Paddy watched them conspire and wondered why they bothered: each always sang the same song anyway, choosing the one that best suited their voice. Trays of delicious food swayed above the heads and through the room.

Mary A

Sean was in the kitchen doorway, nodding as a red-faced old union official ranted about the recession. The government wouldn’t dare, the old man said, pointing adamantly at Sean’s shoulder; they’d be provoking a national strike, and the shipyards were central to the Scottish economy. It would be a catastrophe, he said, a disaster. You don’t remember before the war, you don’t remember what the Tories are really like underneath the consensus. Sean shook his head instead to see if that would mollify the old man. And you young ones, the man warmed to his subject, you don’t care, you don’t see what’s happening. It’s you who’ll pay. He pointed at them each in turn. It’s your generation who’ll end up on the rubbish heap. Paddy and Sean nodded in unison, wishing the old man would be quiet and go away. Having delivered his message and spotted a friend across the room, he did both.

“Well,” said Sean, “that’s me told.”

He smiled down at her, and over his shoulder she saw her oldest sister, Caroline, coming through the crowd carrying her baby son on her hip. She looked exhausted. Baby Co

Caroline slipped the baby into Paddy’s arms. “God, take him off me before I hurt one or both of us.”

“Where’s John, then?”

“He’s out in the hall somewhere,” said Caroline. “I’ll go and find him.”

She left the room quickly, stepping lighter now she was alone.

Sean smiled to see Paddy with the fat baby. “Suits you.”

“God, that John’s so lazy. I don’t know why she ever married him,” said Paddy, pretending to talk about her sister’s marriage but actually sending him a message about theirs. “Hold him while I wipe his nose.”

Sean took Baby Co

Sean leaned over. “D’you fancy Raging Bull at the pictures tomorrow? It’s supposed to be quite good.”

Paddy didn’t particularly want to see a boxing movie, but she said she would. She felt mean for giving him trouble for John’s crimes. “Bet your gran’d be pleased at the size of the crowd.”

Sean nodded and nuzzled his face into her hair, pressing the baby’s fat, powdery cheek against hers. “Everyone here’ll be at our engagement party in May. As soon as our name comes up on the council list and we get a house, we can start working on getting one of these as well.”

Paddy smiled up at him, scrunching her eyes together so that he couldn’t see what she was thinking.

The baby weighed heavy on her hip, and she used the excuse to go and find Caroline and give him back. She managed to lose Sean to the back bedroom, where his uncles were singing rebel songs and drinking whisky.

She spent the rest of the night standing in the kitchen next to the oven, smiling at whoever talked to her, pretending to laugh along with the crowd. She forgot about Terry Hewitt and the spite that should have fueled her and gorged herself on slices of fruitcake and arctic roll, swallowing before she’d finished chewing, shoving food into her mouth to quell the panic.

III

Five miles across town from Gra