The Girl from Ballymor. Kathleen McGurl

You’ll stand a good chance of winning the Queen of the Fair, so you will.’

      The other girls scowled at her, except for one who smiled and nodded. ‘He’s right, you’re prettier than any of us. There’s a good prize for the winner. You might as well.’

      Well why not? Kitty thought. That was three people now who thought she could win. She didn’t so much as own a mirror, but if they all thought she was pretty then perhaps she was. Only one person had praised her looks before, and that was Thomas Waterman and she did not want to think about him.

      She stepped forward. ‘All right, I’ll enter. What do I need to do?’

      ‘Good girl!’ the man in the red jacket said. ‘Let me give you a number and write down your name. You have to walk around the arena, and the girl who gets the loudest cheer and is thought the bonniest by our judge will win the prize. We start in half an hour, so wait here with the others till then.’

      It was a nerve-racking half-hour, but Kitty made friends with the girl who’d spoken to her, and the time passed reasonably quickly. She worried no one would cheer for her. The others all seemed to have friends and relatives at the show to support them, but she had no one. But when it was her turn, and she was walking round the fenced-off ring in the centre of the field, a huge cheer went up from people on the left of the arena. Looking over, she saw the sandy-haired boy she’d met on the way to the fair. He was encouraging everyone around him to cheer for her, and it made her smile with delight, her confidence boosted. She resolved to look for him afterwards and thank him. He’d never be interested in her, of course, shackled as she was with a small child.

      As she turned at the end of the arena to walk back, she saw a man sitting on horseback, watching the parade. Her stomach lurched. She hadn’t thought for a moment that Thomas Waterman might be here. She’d assumed he’d be in England. Surely he was too high and mighty to attend the fair? He was watching her closely, then he leaned down to say something to the man in the red jacket who stood beside him. Kitty was shaken to the core. It was the first time she’d set eyes on Waterman since that terrible day, nearly four years ago. She hurried through the last of her walk, and ducked underneath the ropes on the opposite side from Waterman. The sandy-haired boy ran round to meet her.

      ‘You were the prettiest by far, and got the loudest cheer – I made sure of that! You’ll win, wait and see!’

      ‘Ah, but it depends on what the judge thinks. And I don’t even know who is the judge,’ she replied.

      ‘’Tis Mr Thomas Waterman, of course,’ the boy said, pointing him out on his huge bay horse. ‘Old William Waterman usually does it, but they say he is sick this year so the duty has fallen to his son.’

      Kitty did not turn to look. She felt as though Waterman was still watching her, his eyes burning a hole in her back. If he was the judge she wouldn’t win, that was for sure. And if by some strange twist he did pick her, she would not accept her prize, not if it meant approaching him. She tore the number from her dress and walked away from the arena. It was time she left the fair and went home.

      ‘Wait! Don’t you want to see if you’ve won?’ the boy called, as he ran to catch up with her.

      ‘No. I shouldn’t have entered. I want to go home now,’ she said.

      ‘Let me walk you home,’ he said, falling into step alongside him.

      She smiled in response. She still didn’t know his name. ‘I’m Kitty Tooley,’ she blurted out, before she could stop herself.

      ‘And I’m Patrick McCarthy.’ He grinned at her, his cheeks dimpling deeply.

      ‘Pleased to meet you, Patrick, and thank you for getting people to cheer for me.’

      ‘You are welcome. I still think you are the winner. You’re the winner for me, anyways.’

      He walked all the way home with her that day, and by the time they reached her home they were firm friends. He’d told her of his job working in the copper mines and his home in the hills above Ballymor, in a small miners’ village called Kildoolin. She knew all about his family – his mother who’d died some years back, his aged father, his older brother in Limerick, his younger brothers who’d moved into the town, his sisters all married and moved away. She’d told him too of her parents, who’d both died when she was a child, and her mother’s aunt, Mother Heaney, who’d brought her up, and whom she still lived with although these days Kitty looked after her rather than the other way around: Ma Heaney being lame after a broken leg set badly some years before.

      ‘Is it just you and your great-aunt in your cottage?’ he asked.

      She took a deep breath. Now was the time she needed to tell him about Michael, and that would mean he would lose interest, leave her to walk the rest of the way alone, and never want to see her again. But she could not lie to him, this kind, sweet boy with his dimpled cheeks and twinkling eyes. ‘There’s Mother Heaney, me and little Michael,’ she said.

      ‘Michael? Is he your brother, or cousin?’

      ‘He’s only three. And, well, no he’s not my brother or cousin. He’s my son.’ There. She’d said it. He’d turn tail now, sure he would. She was only too used to being judged harshly for having had a child out of wedlock.

      ‘What happened to his father?’ he asked, tentatively.

      ‘Michael doesn’t have a father,’ she replied, the same reply she’d always given to anyone who asked that question.

      He nodded, as if that explained everything, and they walked in silence for a time. All the while Kitty expected Patrick to make his excuses and leave. But instead, suddenly and unexpectedly, he said, ‘I’d love to meet your little fellow. Will you let me meet him, some day?’

      ‘I will, that,’ she had said, grinning broadly.

      *

      It was a good memory. Kitty smiled as she picked up the water bucket. She then climbed the hill behind her cottage, to a pool in the stream where the villagers fetched water. She could recall every second of that day when she had met her wonderful husband, her saviour and best friend.

      But, as she dunked the bucket in the stream to fill it, she sighed sadly. When Patrick was lost she had cursed her bad fortune, railed against God who had punished her so, and for why? She had not thought anything so bad could happen to her again. But then, the year after Patrick’s death was the first winter that the potato crop failed. They had struggled through it, but the crop failed again the next autumn. Eleven-year old Little Pat had collapsed from exhaustion in the fields, and never recovered. She had felt his loss like a limb being torn from her body. It had left a scar that would never heal. In the second winter of the famine – a terribly cold and harsh one, which only added to their suffering – the three babies had died of malnourishment and fever, despite her going without to allow her to fill their plates. One after the other Nuala, Jimmy and Éamonn had weakened and died, each death dealing a blow to her soul, each burial feeling as though she buried another part of her being. There were only Gracie and Michael left. Kitty had wondered, many times, if the children might have survived if she’d taken them and gone into the workhouse. But she would have been separated from them. And she’d heard such terrible stories of what happened to children in workhouses. There would have been no way back for them. People only came out of the workhouse in wooden boxes.

      She hauled the bucket out of the stream and set off back down to her cottage. For now, at least, they had food, and she’d saved Gracie from going the way of her brothers and sister.

      Grace was back from delivering the bread to Mr O’Shaughnessy, and almost as soon as Kitty entered the cottage she heard Michael’s familiar whistle as he came up the track from Thomas Waterman’s fields.

      ‘Look!’ he said, excitedly, as soon as he reached her. ‘I saw Mr O’Dowell in town and he’s after giving me a whole book for drawing in, and a box of pencils!’

      Kitty smiled to see what Michael was holding out. A week ago she might have cursed, wondering what was the use