The Family on Paradise Pier. Dermot Bolger

      The Family on Paradise Pier

      Dermot Bolger

      

      For Donnacha and Diarmuid

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

Prologue 1941

PART ONE 1915–1935

ONE The Picnic

TWO The News

THREE Four Thousand Lamps

FOUR The Motor

FIVE The Boat

SIX The Docks

SEVEN The Exiles

EIGHT The Studio

NINE Not a Penny off the Pay

       TEN The Turf Cutters

       ELEVEN The Two Fredericks

       TWELVE Eccles Street

       THIRTEEN Deep in the Woods

       FOURTEEN Chelsea

       FIFTEEN The Visit

       SIXTEEN The Letter

       SEVENTEEN A Jaunt Abroad

       EIGHTEEN The Night Call

       PART TWO 1936

       NINETEEN Hunting and Shooting

       PART THREE 1937–1946

       TWENTY The Volunteer

       TWENTY-ONE Night

       TWENTY-TWO The Bailiffs

       TWENTY-THREE The Crumlin Kremlin

       TWENTY-FOUR The Journey

       TWENTY-FIVE The Camp

       TWENTY-SIX The Man from Spain

       TWENTY-SEVEN In the Hold

       TWENTY-EIGHT An Encounter

       TWENTY-NINE The Great Betrayal

       THIRTY The Plane

       THIRTY-ONE The Knock

       THIRTY-TWO The Grave

       THIRTY-THREE A Tutor Comes

       THIRTY-FOUR Make Room

       THIRTY-FIVE Home

       THIRTY-SIX The Former People

       THIRTY-SEVEN The Flag

       THIRTY-EIGHT A Darkened Room in Oxfordshire

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       Praise

       By the Same Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       Prologue 1941

      A parched twilight began to close in around the unlit prisoner train. For over a week the zeks in Brendan Goold Verschoyle’s wagon had jolted across a landscape they rarely glimpsed, crushed together in putrid darkness. Only those crammed against the wooden slats ever saw the small worms of daylight flicker in through the slight cracks. Little sound penetrated into the wagon either, just the ceaseless rumble of the tracks and very occasionally a more confined echo as they passed at speed through an empty station. Sometimes the long train stopped and prisoners shifted eagerly, yearning for the noise of hammers as guards untangled barbed wire coiled around each carriage and eventually opened the doors. In the stampede to relieve themselves on the dry earth outside, dignity would be forgotten as men and women squatted together under the gaze of the guards and their dogs. But more often these stops occurred for no obvious reason. There would be no sound outside after the wheels came to a rusty halt, no footsteps, no safety catches unleashed, no orders screamed for zeks to get down on their knees and be counted. Instead the train would remain motionless for an indeterminable period during which the zeks inwardly clung to dreams of water and dry bread