Anne's Song Read Free

hadn't yet been allocated council accommodation. I'm sure they longed for us all to be together under one roof, although I never remember them saying this to us. Adults wouldn't discuss something like that in front of children back then.
    I loved living with my grandparents. My grandmother called me her Madonna. I was the first granddaughter in the family and she made a tremendous fuss of me, as did my Aunt Teresa. I was spoilt to death. I saw my dad and brother every now and then, but I can't say I missed them. My mum would sometimes go and stay with my father at his parents' house on the other side of the city. I don't suppose they found it ideal, but I was perfectly happy.
    Nana Breslin indulged me from dawn to dusk. I remember being fond of beetroot, for example, which she used to buy fresh from the market. She might be preparing it for a meal and I'd sit beside her and eat as much of it as I could, but she never told me off. My mum might come into the kitchen and say, 'Don't do that. It's Nana's,' but my grandmother would reply, 'Oh, leave her. She's fine.'
    Tommy and my dad lived with his mother, Mary Nolan, in a flat above a corner shop in Clontarf, quite a smart seaside resort to the north of Dublin. She was lovely and would always make me laugh. She'd wander round the house humming with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. However, I think she'd been spoilt when she was young. Certainly, she wasn't happy if she didn't get her own way. She was given to throwing tantrums; she'd flounce out of the room and go and sit on her own in her bedroom.
    Her husband Thomas, by all accounts a kind, caring man, had died when my dad was twelve, leaving Tommy as the only male in the household – he had two older sisters, Shelagh and Doreen. I think his mother put a lot of pressure on him too young to transform himself into the man of the house, and I've often wondered whether what was effectively the loss of his childhood shaped the character of the person he later became.
    Gran Nolan and my mother never really got on. I don't think she thought Mum was good enough for her son, but then I don't think any girl would have been. Even so, she'd taunt my mother by talking about my dad's previous girlfriends. There was a particular one called Maud Quinn who was quite posh and belonged to the local tennis club. I think Gran Nolan would have preferred her as a daughter-in-law. Not that my mother took any notice of all this: it was water off a duck's back.
    I was four when my parents were given a terraced council house on the Ballygael Road in an area of Dublin called Finglas. Denise and Maureen had been born by then. Denise is two years younger than me and Maureen three and a half years younger. I'm as close to Denise as I am to Tommy, probably because they were born either side of me.
    Tommy's always been very extrovert, very funny, but if he has something on his mind that's worrying him, he'll either ignore it or blurt it out, pretending it's a joke when we all know it isn't. He's been like that for as long as I can remember. We fought like cat and dog when we were young, but we've always been very close. One Christmas, I remember, our parents bought each of us boxing gloves and we'd spar with one another. I usually won, not because I was stronger but because I hit Tommy with all my might while he held back because I was a girl. He's always been protective of me.
    Tommy was a very good-looking boy with dark hair and eyes to match and he grew into a handsome young man. As a child, Denise was very cute with dark curly hair and brown eyes; as an adult she's the one who looks most like our mother. She's very placid, very loving. She's the kindest person I know, someone who would never, ever forget a birthday or an anniversary. If it's someone's birthday, she'll be the one who arranges the party, who gets everyone together, who buys the cake. Every spare minute she has, she goes to visit our mum and she's not shy of keeping us up to the task,