The Woman’s Daughter. Dermot Bolger

      We had the house to ourselves and could do what we liked. Johnny and I bought a record-player between us and his friends called now to the sitting-room to play cards and listen to music. I’d come in with big pots of tea and toast for them and fall in love with each in turn, and they’d always shout down to me in the kitchen on their way out where I read romance magazines alone.

      I had new friends in the shirt factory and we laughed and chatted to each other among the clattering machines. At lunch-time we’d sit out on the steps and wave back at the lads unloading the vans. Every Friday night, we’d gather at the bus stop to go to the pictures or dancing. I’d soak for half an hour in the bath and use the Lady Manhattan talc I’d splashed out five bob for.

      The Friday evening bus to town. They occupy the back seat on top: eight of them squashed against the blue leather, five with beehive hairstyles, one looking like Priscilla Lane. Frames of evening sunlight flicker between the houses. One girl is laughing hysterically, inhaling noisy gulps of air as though she were choking. Whenever she falters, another begins and then another, each setting the other off, with the original joke long forgotten. The boys in the top seats cast slick glances back at them and shout down the aisle.