Prudence Entwhistle stared out of the window at the plummeting sun, and shuddered. Soon, the clocks would go back. Beside the fire, her sister Primrose was crocheting some socks for the boys at the Front. She had recently been regressing to early adulthood, even talking fondly of her Clive coming home on leave, though he had perished in Flanders, writes Kevin Myers
"I hate the change in the clocks," Prudence murmured. "So depressing." "Now Pru, don't be downhearted, you're doing the Kaiser's work for him. I'll bet you don't hear the boys at the Front complaining about the change in the clocks. Saves fuel, you know." There was a flushing sound from the lavatory. Finally! Poor Cuthbert had chronic constipation, against which syrup of figs battled almost in vain. He tottered in and slowly lowered himself into his patched leather armchair. "Anything on the television?" he asked. "It's past five, so the test-card's finished. Children's television will be on. Crackerjack and that Seamus Android fella."
"Eamon Andrews," said Pru distantly, turning on the set. It was a 14-inch Bush, and it took several minutes to warm up. They had bought it for the Coronation in 1953, and Basil Booth-Wright, who had been in the Engineers in the last lot, had erected a huge aerial to collect a BBC signal from Wales. All their Kingstown friends had gathered loyally in this very room to watch, finishing at attention with a sotto voce "God Save the Queen". The Bush had long since blown its valves, but Cuthbert still liked to watch the blizzard on the screen, imprinting upon it a memory of programmes he had seen 30 or 40 years ago.
Time to start preparing the tea. Pru made her way slowly into the kitchen. She no longer saw the greasy cobwebs or the insolent mice sauntering across the counter. She opened the cupboard; a tin of sardines sat alone on the shelf.
How had she come to this? Her mind went back 90 years. The House of Lords had just rejected the Home Rule Bill. "Best thing they ever did," declared Papa, his back to the fireplace next door. "The Romans can't be trusted to govern themselves. Pretty soon they'll come to their senses and give up all this Home Rule tommy rot, you mark my words."
He had just bought The Grange, a small-holding near Stillorgan. "Ideal for a model farm," he declared. "A few geese, some hens, a goat or two, a few head of cattle. We'll be self-sufficient, sell the surplus, and by Jove, we'll turn a tidy penny that way!" In summertime, Primrose and Prudence would take the trap to tend their little farm. When Primrose's monthlies were troubling her, Pru would journey alone down the winding country lanes from Kingstown to Galloping Green. That was how she met Jack Garland, out hacking his hunter. He raised his riding crop to his forehead.
"A fine day, young lady, and a finer cob. Welsh, I take it?" "Yes," she replied, a little austerely.
"Steadier than the Norman and handsomer than the Irish," he continued, her austerity wasted on him. "You're an Entwhistle, aren't you?"
"How do you know that?"
"Because you get your coal from us," he said, smiling. She looked at him closely. Good heavens, she knew him. The Garlands were both wealthy and Roman. New money, sniffed Papa. Maybe - but impossibly handsome new money. "Mind if I accompany you? This area's notorious for highwaymen."
She laughed. "You should do that more often," he said.
He bade her good afternoon at the farm. The next day, their paths met again, and she invited him to inspect the livestock. When Prim returned to work, he simply passed by, day after day, until Prim was again unwell, and she invited him back in.
One evening, while they were erecting nets over the raspberries, he kissed her. Far from pushing him away, she put her hands around his neck and pressed herself against him, an inferno raging within her.
Over the coming days, she thought about her plight. She was in love, but her father would never freely assent to their marriage: so what if she got pregnant? What if she submitted to those desires causing such constant turmoil down below? Jack eagerly agreed to her plan. The Garlands were as implacably Catholic as the Entwhistles were Protestant. A common avoidance of a scandal was the only certain route to marriage. One evening behind the raspberries, they implemented Pru's scheme, with passionate ineptness at first but with increasing skill over the coming days.
No other unmarried woman had ever welcomed a late period as Pru did that August. But then, disaster. Jack, a lieutenant in the South Irish Horse, was called up and vanished for all time on the retreat from Mons. Two months into her pregnancy, she lost the child, even as her foolish, greedy father sold the land, thinking he was getting a high wartime price.
Now, holding that single tin of sardines, she uttered a vast forlorn sob, and wiped a tear from her cheek. Here were the three of them, enduring colossal old age in abject, shameful poverty. She began to peel some potatoes, putting the skins on to The Irish Times, which the local newsagent would give them after snipping the title.
Those merciful tears prevented her seeing the report that Grange's 11 acres, where 90 years before she and Jack Garland had made love amid the raspberries, is expected to sell for €100 million. She made a bundle of the skins, and put them in the bin.