The Silver Road by Sinéad O'Hart

Author:Sinéad O'Hart [O'Hart, Sinéad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

Rose was almost home, her belly full of tea and cake and her heart full of hope, when she realised she’d forgotten to go to the shop. Her good mood felt like it had been punctured as she realised that even if she turned around and ran all the way there, and all the way back, it would be a forty-minute trip at least – and Mam probably needed the shopping right now. Her head was still buzzing from the feeling of being in Nellie’s kitchen with the teapot steaming merrily. They’d become so wrapped up in talking about what might happen next, and what they could do to help the Seandraíocht, that everything else had simply fallen out of Rose’s mind.

‘Oh no,’ she groaned, pushing her hand into her pocket. The purse was still there, with her mother’s folded ten-euro note, and the shopping list. Bread. Milk. Margarine. Pound of mince. ‘Mam needs this stuff to make dinner,’ Rose muttered to herself, her fingers tightly gripping the piece of paper – part of a torn-off envelope.

You could pretend to lose it, said a quiet voice inside her head. Just pretend it fell out of your pocket and you didn’t know what else to do but come home . . .

Rose felt her grip on the paper loosening, but then – almost like it had shifted position – she became aware of the weight of the hammer she wore thrust through her waistband. She swallowed hard and folded the shopping list back up, shoving it into her pocket again. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and kept walking.

She pulled open the sliding porch door and was immediately hit by a wave of wailing. Her brothers were hot, bothered and probably hungry.

‘Rose?’ came her mother’s voice from the kitchen. ‘Is that you?’

‘Yes, Mam,’ Rose said, her heart skittering a bit at the thought of what was going to happen next. She walked slowly up the hall, stopping in the kitchen doorway. Her mam was working at the hob.

‘Did you get that mince, love? Dad said he’d be home by six and it’d be nice to have everything ready for him.’

‘Mam, I forgot,’ Rose said.

Her mother turned to her, the smile dropping away from her face. ‘What?’ Mrs Darke looked down at Rose’s hands, as if expecting to see full bags hanging from them. ‘Did you not get any of the shopping?’

Rose bit her lip. ‘I’m so sorry, Mam. I just – I forgot about the shop. I was busy with Sophia and I –’

‘Rosaleen Darke!’ Her mother’s irritation had turned to a full-on rage. ‘I can forgive you forgetting the shopping. I can forgive almost anything. But what I cannot forgive is lying!’ She pulled the frying pan away from the heat and turned the ring off, all while keeping her eyes on Rose. ‘I brought the boys for a quick walk while you were gone and I ran into Sophia and Aleksina at the bus stop. They were going into town to get Sophia a new pair of football boots.

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