Difference between revisions of "User:Eels/Sandbox"

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{{Tabs
+
MISS IRELAND
  | name = Name goes here
 
  | title = Title goes here
 
  | style="text-align:center"
 
  | icon1 = '''Hats & Misc'''
 
  | content1 =
 
{{Tabs
 
  | title = Title goes here
 
  | style="text-align:center"
 
  | icon1 = '''Hats & Misc'''
 
  | content1 =
 
<table class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" width="100%" style="text-align: center; border: none; border-spacing: 2px">
 
<tr>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Status'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Englisch'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Deutsch'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Anmerkung'''</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Damage and Function Times</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Schaden und Funktionszeiten</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Painted Variants</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Angemalte Varianten</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Styles</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Stile</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Crafting</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Herstellen</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Blueprint</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Blaupause</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">As a Crafting Ingredient</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Als Herstellungszutat</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Update History</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Update-Verlauf</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Trivia</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Sonstiges</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Bugs</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Fehler</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Gallery</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Galerie</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Item Set</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Gegenstandsset</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Unused content</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Unbenutzte Inhalte</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">See Also</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Siehe auch</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">External Links</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Externe Links</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
</table>
 
  | icon2 = '''Test'''
 
  | content2 =
 
<table class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" width="100%" style="text-align: center; border: none; border-spacing: 2px">
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Related Merchandise</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Zugehörige Fanartikel</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Exploit</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Exploit</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Hitscan</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Hitscan</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">ÜberCharge</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Überladung</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Overheal</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Überheilung</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Resupply Locker</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Versorgungsschrank</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Bleeding</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Bluten</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Concept art</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Entwurf</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Notes</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Notizen/Anmerkungen</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: darkgreen; font-weight: bold;">Abwandelbar</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Item</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Gegenstand</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Map</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Karte</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>            
 
</table>
 
}}
 
  
  | icon2 = '''Weapons'''
 
  | content2 =
 
{{Tabs
 
  | title = Title goes here
 
  | style="text-align:center"
 
  | icon1 = '''Hats & Misc'''
 
  | content1 =
 
<table class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" width="100%" style="text-align: center; border: none; border-spacing: 2px">
 
<tr>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Status'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Englisch'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Deutsch'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Anmerkung'''</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Damage and Function Times</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Schaden und Funktionszeiten</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Painted Variants</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Angemalte Varianten</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Styles</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Stile</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Crafting</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Herstellen</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Blueprint</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Blaupause</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">As a Crafting Ingredient</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Als Herstellungszutat</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Update History</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Update-Verlauf</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Trivia</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Sonstiges</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Bugs</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Fehler</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Gallery</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Galerie</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Item Set</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Gegenstandsset</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Unused content</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Unbenutzte Inhalte</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">See Also</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Siehe auch</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">External Links</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Externe Links</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
</table>
 
  | icon2 = '''Test'''
 
  | content2 =
 
<table class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" width="100%" style="text-align: center; border: none; border-spacing: 2px">
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Related Merchandise</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Zugehörige Fanartikel</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Exploit</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Exploit</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Hitscan</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Hitscan</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">ÜberCharge</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Überladung</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Overheal</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Überheilung</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Resupply Locker</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Versorgungsschrank</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Bleeding</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Bluten</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Concept art</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Entwurf</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Notes</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Notizen/Anmerkungen</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: darkgreen; font-weight: bold;">Abwandelbar</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Item</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Gegenstand</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Map</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Karte</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>            
 
</table>
 
}}
 
  | icon3 = '''Classes'''
 
  | content3 =
 
{{Tabs
 
  | title = Title goes here
 
  | style="text-align:center"
 
  | icon1 = '''Hats & Misc'''
 
  | content1 =
 
<table class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" width="100%" style="text-align: center; border: none; border-spacing: 2px">
 
<tr>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Status'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Englisch'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Deutsch'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Anmerkung'''</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Miscellaneous item </td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Sonstiger Gegenstand</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Promotional item</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Werbegegenstand</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Tutorial</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Einführung/Tutorial</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: darkgreen; font-weight: bold;">Abwandelbar</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Ammo</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Minition</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Taunt / (to) taunt</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Verspottung / verspotten</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
</table> 
 
  
  | icon2 = '''More Test'''
+
The maid stuck her head in the gas oven one Sunday afternoon in the Devoy house, 27 Vandeleur Drive, but not before she had fed and changed the baby—Fergal, it was—and put him down for his nap. The family was out visiting Nana Devoy, as they always did after second Mass, and the maid had timed it, or so Betty Fortune had heard, so the deed would be done before they got back and before Fergal woke again. She had put soaking towels in the gap between the kitchen door and the floor so that the fumes would not escape into the rest of the house and left a scrawled note pinned to the kitchen door saying DANGER – KEEP OUT. There was a deadly precision to the arrangement, a precision Irene Devoy had never noticed in the girl before, though she didn’t voice this, not wanting to speak ill of the dead. She wanted everything about the terrible scandal that had been visited upon her household to be proper because what Irene felt deep in her heart about the suicide of the maid was selfish relief.  
  | content2 =
 
<table class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" width="100%" style="text-align: center; border: none; border-spacing: 2px">
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Critical hit</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Kritischer Treffer</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Mini-crit</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Mini-Krit/Minikrit</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: darkgreen; font-weight: bold;">Abwandelbar</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Crate</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Kiste</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Key</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Schlüssel</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
</table> 
 
}}
 
 
 
  | icon4 = '''Updates'''
 
  | content4 =
 
<table class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" width="100%" style="text-align: center; border: none; border-spacing: 2px">
 
<tr>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Status'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Englisch'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Deutsch'''</td>
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Anmerkungen'''</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Gold Rush Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Gold Rush-Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">The Pyro Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Das Pyro-Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">The Heavy Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Das Heavy-Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">The Scout Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Das Scout-Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">The Sniper vs. Spy Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Das Sniper vs Spy-Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
<tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Classless Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Das klassenlose Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Haunted Halloween Special</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Speziell Spukendes Halloween</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">WAR! Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">WAR!-Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">First Community Contribution Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Erster Beitrag der Community(-Update)</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">119th Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">119tes Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Second Community Contribution Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Zweiter Beitrag der Community(-Update)</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
                <tr>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Mac Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Mac-Update</td>
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
 
</tr>
 
  
                <tr>
+
Liam had suggested the maid.  She can deal with the baby, the night feeds, and help out with the chores etc, etc, Liam had said. Etcetera was a phrase he used a lot, and it covered a multitude.  But Irene couldn’t complain.  Liam was a good provider.  With a new baby in the house, he was worried about Irene losing her beauty sleep, as he called it; that was why Quinny was hired in the first place.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
    Of course she wasn’t Quinny when she came.  She was Marguerite Quinn, recommended by a colleague of Liam’s in Public Works.  She was a country girl, as all these maids were, and on first sight, Irene’s heart took a dive.  She expected someone mousy and cowed, but Quinny was a big girl, big-boned that is, with breasts and curves sheathed in a black bri-nylon polo, a skirt in houndstooth check tight around the beam-end, and black stockings with, Irene noticed, a ladder stopped above the knee with nail polish.  She wore kitten heels. She had long auburn hair, long enough to sit on—which delighted the boys—and brown eyes, large and placid.  And she had a beauty spot, pasted high on her pale cheekbone.  The only way in which she satisfied Irene’s expectations was in her accent, flat and tinkerish.  She called Irene Missus.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Engineer Update</td>
+
“Where have you been working before this?” Irene asked her.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Engineer-Update</td>
+
“Worked for a lord in the county Meath, Missus.  In a castle.  With a moat and all. But I was let go.” 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
“Oh.” Irene felt a tiny tremor of alarm. She waited for an explanation but the girl offered none. 
</tr>
+
“Well, we don’t have a castle here,” Irene said, laughing nervously as she showed Quinny the box room in the back that they’d cleared for her and the baby. With the cot in there it looked pokey and the sun went in just at that moment, so it took on a dingy air. Irene was about to apologise.  Then she thought better of it.  This was a maid, for god’s sake.
<tr>
+
“Now, come and meet the boys.”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Mann-Conomy Update</td>
+
Rory was seven and Owen coming up for four, and it was he who lisp-ily christened her Quinny.  Marguerite was too exotically long and syllabled for him (he was slow to talk), and since every name he’d mastered had a long e at the end and sounded diminutive—Daddy, Mummy, Rory—Marguerite became Quinny.  Irene rather liked it.  It had the ring of a family retainer, as if Quinny was comfortably old, someone they’d inherited from the generation before.  Until people clapped eyes on her, that is.  Once they did, she was back to being the maid.  The young one, the pretty one.  The postman, who’d been to America, called her Red.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Mann-Conomy-Update</td>
+
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
Before she came, Irene had nursed visions of being munificent with the maid, being the lady of the house, firm but fair.  But once Quinny arrived in the flesh, a whole new set of ambitions attached themselves to her.  She imagined schooling Quinny in housewifery, and in some hidden part of her, maybe even becoming like a mother to her, or if not a mother a helpful older sister. (Irene felt her singularity in a male household.)  But Quinny’s manner did not allow any of Irene’s vague fantasies to be enacted.  There was something feral about her, Irene thought, like a hibernating animal that was only barely house-trained. Not that there was anything to complain about in Quinny’s work. She did the night feeds without complaint, she got Rory up and out to school in the mornings, and gave Owen his breakfast.  She would even bring Irene a cup of tea in bed where she was allowed to lie on for the first time in years.  Quinny’s attitude to work, though, was graceless.  She had a kind of phlegmatic loathing for the tasks Irene herself hated—cleaning the bathroom, ironing the sheets.  She handled Fergal with a brusque expertise.  (Irene remembered how tentative she’d been as a first-time mother with Rory and she was sure, as a baby, he had sensed that, somehow.) Irene couldn’t identify the source of her unease about Quinny except perhaps that in a very short time, her boys became more attached to Quinny than they were to her.  Rory’s face would fall when he came in from school on Wednesdays forgetting it was Quinny’s day off.  Owen would trail up to her room and sit on her bed waiting for her to come home. Or if she was doing the ironing—in the dining room with the radio tuned to Luxembourg—he would sit at her feet and play with the rolled-up socks.  Irene would watch her to see what it was that Quinny did differently.  She ignored the boys benignly, Irene discovered, let them talk and chatter.  She didn’t lead their conversations, she followed them.  She was like a bigger, duller child. 
</tr>
+
When the children were in bed, Irene would urge Quinny to join Liam and her in the sitting room to watch TV, thinking that this might make her more malleable.
                <tr>
+
“No thanks, Missus,” she would say, “I’ll stay in the kitchen, if you don’t mind.”  Or she would go to her room, Irene guiltily seeing her chaste single bed pushed up against the cot, the scarred bedside locker they’d  bought second-hand in Christy Bird’s,  the curtained-off alcove in place of a proper wardrobe.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
“We’ve fallen on our feet there,” Liam said, very pleased with himself.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Scream Fortress</td>
+
They had, Irene had to admit.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Scream Fortress</td>
+
But still, she wanted more from Quinny, or more of her.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
 
</tr>
+
She tried being friendly, gently prodding the maid with the kind of questions that allowed the possibility of another life outside the confines of Vandeleur Drive.  Have you friends in the city, do you go to the pictures, or, this said blushingly, do you have a boyfriend?  That, Irene suspected, was the rock all maids perished on.  No Missus, Quinny would say.  But Irene couldn’t believe that.  Not of a girl with false eyelashes and a beauty spot. There had to be a romance. Irene’s own young life had been shaped by such certainties, her life before Liam, and what’s more they had been made flesh. As Irene Cardiff, she had once been Miss Ireland.  (The inner picture of herself, if she closed her eyes, was wearing the Connolly ball gown with the black velvet bodice, the petalled waistline, and those full skirts of pleated linen gauze, and the two runners-up, like a pair of comely handmaidens, settling the winning sash on her hips; her crowning moment.)  People took note of her luminous green eyes and white even teeth, her clear complexion and oatmeal hair, her still pert figure—despite three babies.  She could see it in their gaze; she was used to frank admiration.  What they didn’t know was that she had once been a beauty queen.  It wasn’t that she was ashamed of it.  She’d represented her country after all (and reached the final 16 at Miss World in London.)  But among her neighbours, wives of clerkly types, legal people, engineers, the Miss World contest would have been regarded as common and shoddy, she was sure. It would lower the tone, that’s what they would think.  So when she chatted to Betty Fortune, or Edel Elworthy, and especially Miss Larchet, she mentioned she had been an air hostess before her marriage, but never the beauty queen business.  Air hostess was a job, a glamorous occupation; beauty queen was a state of mind.  They’d think her a ninny.
                <tr>
+
      Her marriage to Liam Devoy had won her a sense of achieved seriousness.  His father had fought in 1916, and he was one of the linchpins of the organizing committee for the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Rising.  That’s who she was in the eyes of neighbours, the capable pretty wife of an up-and-coming civil servant with serious pedigree. If they knew about Miss World, they’d look at her differently.  They’d regard her carefully tended blondeness, her discreet make-up (she never went out of the house without what Liam called her “war paint”), and her stylish clothes as some kind of striving after a station in life to which she was not entitled.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
      Even if Quinny would not allow herself to be mothered, Irene thought there was one area where she could help.  The girl’s attempts at fashion were ham-fisted, to say the least—that houndstooth skirt was positively slutty—and though Irene was touched by Quinny’s cheap scents, her false eye-lashes, even the beauty spot, they all seemed like a girl playing dress-up. In this, Irene felt hers was precisely the kind of expertise Quinny needed.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Australian Christmas</td>
+
“Don’t you think something with a slightly longer hemline would be more flattering?” she suggested one Wednesday afternoon as Quinny headed out in a black pencil skirt half-way up her thigh.  Irene had Owen on her hip.  Quinny looked at her with an expression between wounded offence and outright hostility.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Australische Weihnachten</td>
+
“It’s just,” Irene went on, “that for a girl of your build, something a bit longer might be . . .”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
“It’s my afternoon off, Missus,” Quinny said mulishly.
</tr>
+
“Of course,” Irene said, “it’s none of my business.  It’s just I have an eye for these things. I . . .” She was going to tell Quinny about being Miss Ireland, thinking she might be impressed with it.  “And you know it’s my experience that young men prefer a little bit of mystery.”
<tr>
+
“What young men?” Quinny asked.  Irene could hear the bridling tone, as if she had accused Quinny of something.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
“A pretty girl like you,” Irene said, “there must be a young man. . . .”  How many times had Irene herself heard that line. Flirty, wheedling.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Community Map Pack Update</td>
+
“Is that all, Missus?” Quinny interrupted, quite rudely Irene thought.  “I’ll be off, so.”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Community-Karten-Update</td>
+
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
“How do you find her?” she asked Liam though she already knew the answer.  For him, Quinny was a problem solved.  He didn’t trouble himself about the maid’s social life.
</tr>
+
“What do you mean?” he asked.  “She’s perfectly hard-working, does her job, the children love her.  What’s the problem?”
<tr>
+
“I don’t know,” Irene admitted.  Then suddenly fierce. “Then why did she leave the job in the big house in Meath.  Close to home and all.”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
“Close to the home, you mean?”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Shogun Pack</td>
+
“She came from a home?  You didn’t tell me that.”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Shogun-Paket</td>
+
“What difference does it make?”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
Irene couldn’t have said why, but it did make a difference. There was something shameful about those homes where children were left, if only by the deaths of their unfortunate parents.  On one of the red brick avenues near the church, there was a place called The Cottage Home, and though she didn’t know much about it because it was Protestant, Irene always hurried past it (particularly when she had the boys in tow) as if the building itself, like a house in a fairy tale, might reach out and devour them. The face of the home was austere.  Grey unpainted plaster; long, thin windows set in deep embrasures, which gave them a hooded look; gravel out front where a garden should have been.  But the most forbidding thing about The Cottage Home was that there was never any sign of life there.  No evidence at all, in fact, of children. 
</tr>
+
 
<tr>
+
The fact that Quinny was an orphan quelled Irene’s uneasiness for a while.  The girl simply wasn’t used to a good family, or any family at all, for that matter.  That was it. That must be it. But then she began to worry if Quinny was damaged goods, in some way.  Should they have looked for references for her? When they’d hired her, word-of-mouth had seemed recommendation enough, particularly when it was from Enda Dowd, the assistant secretary in Liam’s Department.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
“Ask him,” Irene urged Liam, “why it was she left the job in the castle.”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Hatless Update</td>
+
“Lord God, Irene, would you leave it be?  You’re only making a problem where there isn’t one.”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Hutloses Update</td>
+
But then there was. It was a stupid thing, really, but afterwards Irene was sorry she hadn’t acted.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
    The children were in the playroom in the extension.  It had been built on to the back of the house by the previous owners, an elderly couple, who had used it to grow plants.  It was no more than a glass lean-to, but some day when the boys were grown, Irene determined that she would deck it out with bamboo blinds and cane furniture and turn it into a sunroom.  But for now it was for the kids, a place for them to let off steam when it was raining, as it was that day.  The Fortune twins had come over to play.  Kitty and Liv were a few years older than Rory, and Irene had always thought them a civilising influence.  Also, she wanted her boys to mix with little girls; soon enough they would be packed off to boarding school, as Liam had been, where the female of the species would be reduced to uniforms of Matron and Nurse.
</tr>
+
    It was a Wednesday, and Irene was feeding Fergal in the kitchen.  Quinny was about to leave for her afternoon off.  It had, she’d noticed, gone awfully quiet in the playroom and she asked Quinny if she’d mind checking on the children before she went.  The only entrance to the playroom was from the garden, so Quinny went outside.  What Irene heard next was Quinny screaming.  She thought there’d been some kind of accident, and she rushed out, her heart thumping, with Fergal in her arms still sucking greedily on his bottle.  Thank God, she was thinking, Quinny is still here.
<tr>
+
      But there was no accident.  Quinny was standing just inside the open doorway of the playroom, gripping the door handle.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
“It’s a sacrilege, a sacrilege, do you hear.  Do you understand?” she was shouting.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Replay Update</td>
+
Beyond her, Irene could see Rory and one of the Fortune twins draped comically in a pair of red velveteen curtains she’d recently taken down because they were past their best.  Owen was kneeling in front of them, swathed in a bed sheet.  Irene found herself stifling a smile—the female influence of the Fortune twins was obviously making itself felt.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Replay-Update</td>
+
“What is it?” she asked stepping into the frozen scene, still expecting to see blood.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
“Your boy,” Quinny said accusingly, “your boy has committed a sacrilege.”  There was a catch of grief in her voice.
</tr>
+
“We were playing Mass,” Rory rushed to defend himself.  “I’m Canon Burke, Liv’s Father Dolan, Owen is the altar boy, and Kitty is the audience.”
<tr>
+
“Congregation,” Irene found herself saying.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
“It’s still a sacrilege, Missus,” Quinny said, gulping noisily, “making a mockery of the holy sacrament.”  Her breath was coming high and fast, her cheeks were flushed.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Über Update</td>
+
Irene handed the baby over to Kitty, the more capable of the twins, and put her arm around Quinny, who was heaving dry tears.  Hyperventilation.  She’d seen it a couple of times with nervous flyers in her time.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Über-Update</td>
+
“Take a deep breath, there’s a good girl,” she said as the children looked on aghast.  What a strange reversal this was, she thought, being in the position of comforting Quinny.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
“I’m sure the children meant no harm by it.”
</tr>
+
“It’s a mortal sin,” Quinny said.
<tr>
+
“They’re only children. . . .” Irene said.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
“It doesn’t matter,” Quinny said, “it’s still a mortal sin.”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Summer Camp Sale</td>
+
“I’m sure the boys didn’t mean any harm by it, did you boys?”  She couldn’t presume to speak for the Fortunes.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Summer Camp Sale</td>
+
“Those twins put them up to it,” Quinny said.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
“Rory will make a good confession about it and that’ll be the end of it,” Irene said decisively.  “Isn’t that so?”
</tr>
+
Rory nodded gravely.
<tr>
+
“They were using Tom Thumbs as the Sacred Host,” Quinny persisted. 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
Irene saw the offending bag of sweets sitting on a kitchen plate on the floor.  They were Rory’s, and Irene was rather touched that he had offered his personal hoard up for the sake of verisimilitude.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Manniversary Update & Sale</td>
+
“Maybe Kitty and Liv should run along home now,” Irene said.  She was tiring of trying to console Quinny, who seemed so adamant in her refusal. Kitty handed Fergal back.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Manniversary Update & Sale</td>
+
The twins looked relieved to be out of the line of fire.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
“Now,” Irene said to Quinny, “why don’t we make you a nice cup of tea and we can all calm down.”
</tr>
+
Rory, she could see, was quite shocked at this strange behaviour of Quinny’s.  Owen was simply confused. 
<tr>
+
“You go put the kettle on, Quinny,” she said, figuring that, as with an upset child, distraction was the best policy.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
+
But Quinny just stood there. “Are you going to sack me, Missus?”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Very Scary Halloween Special</td>
+
And that’s when Irene should have said yes
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Sehr gruseliges Halloween-Special</td>
+
 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
“Well, it’s hardly a hanging offence,” Liam said when she told him about it.  “And, at least it proves she’s pious.”
</tr>
+
But, Irene wanted to say, what I saw was not piety but terror.  Quinny had been more terrified than the children were, terrified of them and what they had done.  As if she expected instant retribution.  She was a religious girl—Irene had seen the holy water bottle in her room, the missal.  She went to early Mass every Sunday, but there was nothing to account for this kind of zeal.  Irene found herself examining her own conscience.  She was a believer, of course, but she didn’t go in for craw-thumping.  She prayed spasmodically, but more out of desperation than routine.  Hurried imprecations to stem panic, bargains offered in return for specific favours.  She began to see how childish and lazy her faith was. How lax and deficient she must seem to someone of Quinny’s fanatical heart. She felt herself already judged in Quinny’s eyes for not punishing Rory. She would have to do something, or be seen to do something.  Cravenly, she followed Quinny’s lead and blamed the Fortune twins for the whole business.
</table>
+
“I’ve told Kitty and Liv’s mother that it might be better if they didn’t come over for a  while,” Irene told Quinny, even though she realised she was engaging in appeasement.  Appeasing Quinny.
  | icon5 = '''Weapon qualities'''
+
What she said to Betty Fortune was quite different.
  | content5 =
+
“The maid,” she said, adopting an air of helpless fatalism, “seems to have taken some kind of set against your girls.”
<table class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" width="100%" style="text-align: center; border: none; border-spacing: 2px">
+
And that seemed to be the end of it.
<tr>
+
 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Status'''</td>
+
The episode had its consequences; it made Rory wary of Quinny.  He was nervous by disposition, and Irene knew he feared another outburst, particularly since the first one had been aimed at him. But Owen’s devotion remained.  If anything, it grew.  He wanted only Quinny to bathe him, or to read him his bedtime story. Irene wondered if this was her younger son’s attempt at appeasement.  Or was it the other way around? Since the sacrilege incident, Quinny had taken to favouring Owen, as if he were her primary responsibility. “How’s my little Oweny?” she would croon and his little face would light up.  He’d clamber up on her, and she would nuzzle him and whisper to him. Irene began to feel gently elbowed out.  In the afternoons, Quinny would take Owen into her bed for his nap, and Owen wouldn’t settle anywhere else.  Irene found herself knocking tentatively at Quinny’s door when nap time was up.
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Englisch'''</td>
+
“If Owen sleeps too much during the day, he’ll be awake half the night,” she would entreat.
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Deutsch'''</td>
+
“Sure, I’ll mind him, Missus—don’t I always?”  This directed at Owen who looked up adoringly at Quinny.  Like a depiction of the Virgin and Child, Irene thought.  Irene felt panicky; could a child be killed with kindness?  The balance of power had shifted, and she was afraid.  Afraid of the maid. 
<td class="header" style="background: #F9D483; font-size: 1.00em;">'''Anmerkungen'''</td>
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</tr>
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In the meantime, though, there were the summer holidays.  They rented a chalet in Courtown for the month of July.  Irene took Quinny and Liam came at the weekends, work allowing, so Irene’s memories of that summer were all Quinny.  At close quarters in the chalet, Irene realised how solitary the girl was.  It came as a soft shock.  Irene tried to compensate.  When they went for treats, Irene would determinedly include her.  Sticks of candyfloss, ice cream cones, a matinée at the cinema even though there were only cartoons showing.  When they went to the carnival, she doled out small change to Quinny as if she were an honorary child, though she was 19 and Irene feared she might be offended. But she didn’t seem to be.  At the Spin The Wheel, Quinny won a pink bunny rabbit, which she presented to Owen, although it would have been more suitable for the baby, Irene thought.  Owen was delighted.  He hung on to that bunny for years.  Refused to let Irene take it away, even to wash it, so that it became a grubby talisman of Quinny’s that would not be banished.  In the light of what happened, Irene felt she couldn’t deny him. 
<tr>
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    The weather was glorious.  So hot that the tar on the road to the beach melted and the children’s feet stuck to it.  She remembered having to stop Owen scraping the black stuff off with his fingers and eating it; he thought it was liquorice. There were long lazy days of picnics and sandcastles and dips in the sea.  Quinny was not equipped for the seaside, Irene noticed.  She had no swimwear, and she seemed to have nothing even vaguely summery in her wardrobe.  Her only concession to the heat was that she dispensed with stockings.  Her legs looked pale and sorrowful stuck in her kitten heels and she didn’t shave her legs, Irene saw, so there was quite a thicket growing there.  Irene offered her one of her old bathing suits, though she thought it would be a bit of a squeeze for Quinny to get into it since she was much better endowed on top than Irene was.  (Miss Pays-Bas had told her that was why Irene hadn’t got into the top five in London.  Vulgar creature.)
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
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“It’s alright, Missus,” Quinny said, “I’m not much good with water.  Can’t swim.”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Vintage</td>
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Irene felt sorry for her.  While she and Owen paddled in the shallows and Rory bobbed in the breakers, Quinny sat miserably behind the candy-striped windbreaker looking after Fergal.  It made Irene feel like a girl again, larking about in the surf with the boys, while Quinny seemed more like the mother, sitting in the shade and watching their fun remotely.  And Owen was returned to her. He could not resist the fun of the water, the one place Quinny couldn’t follow.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Klassisch</td>
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    But with Quinny there was always the grit in the oyster. One afternoon when Irene had gone to the beach shop, Quinny had let Owen—it would be Owen, of course—bury his sandals.  They were newly bought, the ones with the clover pattern and the blonde soles.  Quinny was always engaging in this kind of play with them, Irene thought crossly, not supervising them but sinking to their level. When she came back with a net of oranges for the children (no crisps and chocolate bars for her boys; she insisted on healthy snacks to protect their teeth), she interrupted their game so it wasn’t until they were getting ready to pack up and go that the absence of the sandals was discovered. Irene was furious.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
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“They can’t have gone too deep,” Quinny said when they started their search.  But an hour later, when Irene and the boys were reduced to dogs, scrabbling at the sand with their paws, her nonchalance had disappeared.
</tr>
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“Where did you last see them?”  Irene demanded.
<tr>
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“I don’t know,” Quinny said forlornly.  “That was the whole point of the game.”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
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They excavated until the sand all around their encampment was a field of coarse rubble. Owen used his spade and thought it all part of the silly game Quinny had started.  Towards the end, Rory let out a victorious halloo when he unearthed one sandal.  But that was nearly worse. What good was one?  The light began to fail.  The beach was deserted now, and they were steeped in a chilly salmon-coloured dusk.  The children were getting shivery, the baby in Quinny’s arms yelling to be fed, but Irene insisted they continue. She’d wanted to punish Quinny, but in the end, the children had been made to suffer by the fruitless search. There’d be trouble, Irene knew.  Liam couldn’t stand the idea of waste.  He wasn’t tight-fisted, exactly, but he was frugal by nature so that she had to account for every penny of her housekeeping allowance. She was thriftier than he knew—she still had that Connolly gown and all her other beauty queen finery.  In case, she told herself, in case she might find an occasion—some function to do with Liam’s work, maybe—where she could wear them again. But, she suspected, those taffeta and satin dresses lovingly preserved in their plastic shrouds, represented something different to Liam. For him, they spoke of an extravagant nature that might sprout again at any moment. The very things that had attracted him—her style, her poise— had become vices that must be reined in.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Genuine</td>
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“The price of Owen’s sandals will come out of your wages,” she said to Quinny as they trooped back home through the darkening dunes.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Echt</td>
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“Yes, Missus,” was all Quinny said. 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
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</tr>
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The days at the beach were memorialized—not in holiday snaps because Irene was useless with the camera; that was Liam’s domain—but by an unseen hand.  On one of those long lazy days a John Hinde postcard photographer had captured the scene. Two years later, when Irene had had the courage to return to Courtown, Owen spotted the card on the swivel rack in the beachside shop.
<tr>
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“Look, look,” he screamed, “it’s Quinny!”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
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Irene ignored him as he tugged at her sleeve.  It was a scene that had been replayed again and again.  The sight of any long-haired girl on the street could prompt him.  He would run after them, calling out Quinny’s name, Irene in resentful pursuit.  She was weary of trying to explain to long-haired strangers why her son was clinging to them. The sightings on the street were always heartbreaking; he would be inconsolable for days, crushed by the enormity of his own expectation.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Unusual</td>
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“Now, Owen, you know it can’t be Quinny.  Quinny is . . .” Irene didn’t like to use the word.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Ungewöhnlich</td>
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“But she’s here,” Owen insisted waving the card at her.  “Look, look.”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
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  He was getting so hysterical that she bent down to look at the card, and she realised that Owen was right.  The photographer must have stood in the dunes at the curve of the beach—the view was a long one.  The sky blared blue. Irene and her boys were reduced to heads bobbing in the frothy water, but Quinny’s face was captured quite clearly in side-view, and wearing Irene’s straw sun hat.  Some old sense of propriety flared in Irene.
</tr>
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“You’re absolutely right, Owen,” she said, feeling her own voice tremble.  She bought the card to appease him and in the hope that it might provide solace. But part of her wished he had never seen it.  While Owen was in the world, she realised, Quinny would have a hold over her.
<tr>
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<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
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Quinny took Owen on a morning in September, well not exactly took him, she was technically in charge of him.  Irene didn’t know how to explain this—Quinny went missing, and for several hours she had no idea where her son was (though she never told Liam this.)  Quinny was supposed to be taking Owen to the barber—his first big boy cut.  Up to then, Irene had used the scissors on his baby curls, but she’d decided it was time.  Time to let go.  This was the first step on his journey to  boarding school; Irene reckoned she’d better get used to it. In a year’s time, Rory would be sent there.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Community</td>
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    They set off at eleven, Owen happily (a jaunt with Quinny!), and Irene expected them back within the hour.  When lunchtime came and there was no sign of them, Irene began to fret.  The barber shop was only in the village, a ten-minute walk away.  She considered putting Fergal in the pram and going in search of them, but Rory would be in from school for his lunch so she couldn’t leave.  When Rory arrived, she pretended nothing; she fed him and he went back to school.  She put Fergal down for his nap—it was 2.30 now, and for the first time she gave into panic.  Where could they be? Had there been an accident?  She thought of ringing Liam at the office, but she didn’t.  She didn’t want to disturb him, and she didn’t want to be accused of scare-mongering, once more making a mountain out of a molehill where Quinny was concerned.  Anyway, she felt vaguely implicated—why hadn’t she brought Owen to the barber’s herself and left Quinny with the baby?  Wasn’t it Fergal Quinny was employed to mind, in the first place? 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Community</td>
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Rory came in from school and asked mildly where Owen and Quinny were.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
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“They’re having a day in town,” Irene lied.
</tr>
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The lie emboldened her—this is what she would say to Liam.  Already she was thinking ahead.  This way it would appear as if the trip was sanctioned, instead of their toddler son being missing for the best part of the day and Irene having done nothing about it.
<tr>
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<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
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At six she heard the key in the door and rushed into the hallway, praying it wasn’t Liam because now she was more afraid of his censure than the fact that Owen was missing.  A tousled-looking Owen appeared holding Quinny’s hand. He was filthy. There was grime on his face and chocolate stains around his mouth.  His baby curls, she noticed, were still intact.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Self-Made</td>
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“Thank God,” she said, forgetting to be cross with Quinny.  “I was out of my mind with worry.  Where have you been?”
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Selbstgemacht</td>
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“We went up the Pillar,” Owen declared proudly.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
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Irene looked at Quinny.
</tr>
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“Nelson’s Pillar?”
<tr>
+
She was expecting a rush of apology, some abject excuse for keeping the child out for seven hours, some explanation, but Quinny said nothing.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">{{p|yes}}</td>
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“I’ll bring him up for his bath, Missus,” was all she said as if she was simply resuming duties. She led Owen upstairs.  (He kicked up a terrible fuss when Irene insisted on a bath, but with Quinny, he was always docile.)  By the time Liam came home, a scrubbed and dressing-gowned Owen was having his tea with Rory, and everything was back to normal.  Irene was relieved she didn’t have to explain her neglectful part in the affair.  But she was determined to get to the bottom of it.  Tomorrow, she would tackle Quinny.
<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Strange</td>
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<td style="background: #FEF5E0;">Seltsam</td>
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But she didn’t.  She interrogated Owen instead. 
<td style="background: #FEF5E0; color: green; font-weight: bold;">Festgelegt</td>
+
“We were on the bus,” he said.  That was a novelty for him.  “On the upstairs.”
</tr>
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“And what about Nelson’s Pillar?”
</table>
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“It was dark,” he said, “but Quinny held my hand.
}}
+
Irene had never been inside the Pillar.  There were 168 steps that wound up in a spiral to a viewing platform at the top.  Liam had wanted to take her during their courtship, but Irene hadn’t like the sound of it.  
 +
“You can see for miles from up there,” he had said.
 +
But it was the enclosure Irene was afraid of, the seeping granite walls, the imprisonment of it. “And what did you eat?” Irene asked, because Owen was fond of his food.
 +
“Crips,” he answered.
 +
“Crisps,” she corrected, though usually she found his lisp endearing.
 +
He nodded. 
 +
“And chocolate?”  Irene prompted, remembering his muddy mouth. “And what else?”
 +
His brow furrowed in concentration.
 +
“Quinny has a little boy,” he volunteered.
 +
“What do you mean?” Irene said, and she shook him.
 +
“I’m her little boy,” Owen said and smiled cheesily.  It was the closest Irene ever came to striking one of her children. She raised her hand, then let it fall.
 +
 
 +
Over the following weeks, there were several more disappearances though none as alarming as that first time.  If Irene asked Quinny to run to the shops, she would always take Owen with her, and the errands took longer than they should have.  She would take detours to the park (Owen loved the swings).  She took him to the sheep field—Quinny seemed to know all the secret places in the neighbourhood.  They went to view the building site. Eight new houses were being built on to the end of Vandeleur Drive. There were pyramids of gravel and sand on the road and the churning of cement mixers all day.  Quinny took him around the grounds of St Jude’s, the cancer hospital at the end of the avenue. Owen came back from that expedition excitedly proclaiming he’d seen the bald children.  Irene had ruled St. Jude’s out of bounds precisely because there were children there, sick and dying children whom she didn’t want Rory or Owen exposed to. 
 +
“St. Jude’s is no place for him,” she said to Quinny. But what was meant as a reprimand came out feebly, and still Quinny made no apology.
 +
“Nita asked us in,” she said.  “Isn’t that right, Oweny?”  His name is not Oweny.
 +
Nita Dark lived in the gate lodge at the entrance to the hospital.  Mother of a little black boy who was in Low Babies with Owen.  Irene was not sure she approved but Owen and Mo were friends, so she couldn’t exactly forbid the association. But she didn’t want to encourage it either.  The first day he’d come home from school, Owen had asked why Mo was a different colour.
 +
“He’s a baby from the missions,” Irene had lied, furious at having to defend Nita Dark’s unsavoury morals. “He’s from Africa.”
 +
Trust Quinny to pal up with Nita Dark, of all people. 
 +
“She’s a brave woman,” Quinny said as if reading Irene’s mind.
 +
“Or foolish,” Irene said.
 +
Quinny made a dissatisfied pout, like a child being corrected. Then she lifted Owen up and carried him off to give him his lunch.  Irene felt wrong-footed.  As always with Quinny, they never got to talk about the real trouble.
 +
 +
The day, that day, it was Liam who found her. He had Owen in his arms and as soon as he put the key in the front door he could smell the gas. 
 +
“Stay back,” he shouted at Irene and Rory, who were trailing in behind him.  But in his panic he carried Owen into the kitchen so Owen saw.
 +
“Holy Jesus!” Liam cried and shut the door on the sight.
 +
“What is it?” Irene asked.
 +
“Quinny is praying,” Owen said.
 +
 
 +
It made them notorious.  The house where the maid had gassed herself.  What could drive a girl to do such a thing—Irene saw that question in the eyes of her neighbours.  An unwanted pregnancy. That’s what they thought, Irene was sure, and they would look at her and wonder why she hadn’t exerted her authority more firmly.  How could she explain that was not it at all?  With Quinny the worst had already happened, before she had ever darkened the Devoys’ door. It was nothing I did, Irene wanted to say, but of course, this being Vandeleur Drive, no one came out with any such accusations.
 +
    She and Liam went to the funeral in a country church near Kells, though Irene didn’t want to.
 +
“We have to,” Liam said, “we were in loco parentis.”
 +
“She was the maid, Liam, for god’s sake.”
 +
The maid who had tried to purloin her son and then did this to them!  Brought disreputable death into their midst.  Quinny couldn’t even be buried in consecrated ground because of what she’d done.   
 +
    Her parents were there, her father a rough-looking man unkempt with grief, her mother a version of what Quinny might have become.  Fleshy, jowly with startling high-built black hair.  Quinny also had two brothers, it turned out.  Grown men, large, bewildered.
 +
“I thought you said she was an orphan,” Irene hissed at Liam as they travelled gingerly up the aisle of the church to extend their condolences.
 +
“I said a home,” Liam said crossly, Mr. Etc. suddenly a stickler for distinctions, “a mother and baby home.”
 +
“Oh,” Irene said.
 +
“She gave the child up,” Liam muttered.
 +
Chastened, Irene kept her head bowed beneath her black mantilla and let Liam do the talking when they shook Quinny’s mother hand at the top of the church. This new knowledge about Quinny should have helped, but it didn’t. It satisfied Liam, but it left her in the dark.
 +
 +
A lot of things happened that year.  There was the Rising commemoration, which went off without a hitch and won Liam a promotion.  The railway stations were renamed for the signatories of the Proclamation.  The Pillar was blown up by hotheads who said Nelson shouldn’t be lording it over them.  Irene was secretly delighted; another place associated with Quinny reduced to ruin.  At the end of the year, the new houses being built at the end of the street were finished.  As a result, everyone on Vandeleur Drive got a new house number.  The Devoys lost number 27 and inherited 10 instead.  Quinny’s associations were gradually dwindling.
 +
    But the dead maid remained lodged in Irene’s mind. And in Owen’s too, Irene was sure, though the running after strangers in the street did stop, and her name so often invoked in the early days also fell away.  But some things stuck.  Even years afterwards, and with another new baby in the house, Owen still called the nursery Quinny’s room.  Irene felt his loyalty to the dead maid as a constant rebuke between them, as if there was blame attached.  When the time came for Owen to be sent off to boarding school, she quietly welcomed it.  There had been scenes with Rory; tears, hers, her eyes red for days on end.  The gap he left at the dinner table, his unslept-in bed in the boys’ room, his favourite books in Owen or Fergal’s hands, wounded her, as if there’d been a death in the family.  But with Owen, there was only guilty relief.  Now there would be no more Quinny ambushes.  If that’s what it took to be finally shut of her, Irene thought, hardening her heart, then so be it.
 +
“See,” Liam had said to her when she deposited Owen dry-eyed in the big dormitory. “I told you it would get easier.” 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
Nearly three decades later, when Owen brought Kim home and announced he was marrying her, the ghost of Quinny rose again. Not that Kim looked in the slightest bit like Quinny, apart from her hair, long and silky and down to her waist. Otherwise, though, she was petite and sallow, a trained pharmacist. And Oriental, for god’s sake.  One of those unfortunate boat people.
 +
“You can be the daughter my mother never had,” Owen said to Kim in that half-mocking way he talked about her, in her presence. “Isn’t that right, Irene?” (He had long ago stopped calling her Mum.)
 +
    But Irene would not make that mistake again.  Looking at her future daughter-in-law, she felt only a disowning surge of triumph.  She worried how Liam would take to the prospect of little Vietnamese grandchildren in the Devoy family line, but unlike him, she could afford to be magnanimous; she was not seeking to gain a daughter, but to lose a son, this time for good.

Revision as of 07:54, 13 March 2013

MISS IRELAND


The maid stuck her head in the gas oven one Sunday afternoon in the Devoy house, 27 Vandeleur Drive, but not before she had fed and changed the baby—Fergal, it was—and put him down for his nap. The family was out visiting Nana Devoy, as they always did after second Mass, and the maid had timed it, or so Betty Fortune had heard, so the deed would be done before they got back and before Fergal woke again. She had put soaking towels in the gap between the kitchen door and the floor so that the fumes would not escape into the rest of the house and left a scrawled note pinned to the kitchen door saying DANGER – KEEP OUT. There was a deadly precision to the arrangement, a precision Irene Devoy had never noticed in the girl before, though she didn’t voice this, not wanting to speak ill of the dead. She wanted everything about the terrible scandal that had been visited upon her household to be proper because what Irene felt deep in her heart about the suicide of the maid was selfish relief.

Liam had suggested the maid. She can deal with the baby, the night feeds, and help out with the chores etc, etc, Liam had said. Etcetera was a phrase he used a lot, and it covered a multitude. But Irene couldn’t complain. Liam was a good provider. With a new baby in the house, he was worried about Irene losing her beauty sleep, as he called it; that was why Quinny was hired in the first place.

    	Of course she wasn’t Quinny when she came.  She was Marguerite Quinn, recommended by a colleague of Liam’s in Public Works.  She was a country girl, as all these maids were, and on first sight, Irene’s heart took a dive.  She expected someone mousy and cowed, but Quinny was a big girl, big-boned that is, with breasts and curves sheathed in a black bri-nylon polo, a skirt in houndstooth check tight around the beam-end, and black stockings with, Irene noticed, a ladder stopped above the knee with nail polish.  She wore kitten heels. She had long auburn hair, long enough to sit on—which delighted the boys—and brown eyes, large and placid.  And she had a beauty spot, pasted high on her pale cheekbone.  The only way in which she satisfied Irene’s expectations was in her accent, flat and tinkerish.  She called Irene Missus.

“Where have you been working before this?” Irene asked her. “Worked for a lord in the county Meath, Missus. In a castle. With a moat and all. But I was let go.” “Oh.” Irene felt a tiny tremor of alarm. She waited for an explanation but the girl offered none. “Well, we don’t have a castle here,” Irene said, laughing nervously as she showed Quinny the box room in the back that they’d cleared for her and the baby. With the cot in there it looked pokey and the sun went in just at that moment, so it took on a dingy air. Irene was about to apologise. Then she thought better of it. This was a maid, for god’s sake. “Now, come and meet the boys.”

Rory was seven and Owen coming up for four, and it was he who lisp-ily christened her Quinny. Marguerite was too exotically long and syllabled for him (he was slow to talk), and since every name he’d mastered had a long e at the end and sounded diminutive—Daddy, Mummy, Rory—Marguerite became Quinny. Irene rather liked it. It had the ring of a family retainer, as if Quinny was comfortably old, someone they’d inherited from the generation before. Until people clapped eyes on her, that is. Once they did, she was back to being the maid. The young one, the pretty one. The postman, who’d been to America, called her Red.

Before she came, Irene had nursed visions of being munificent with the maid, being the lady of the house, firm but fair. But once Quinny arrived in the flesh, a whole new set of ambitions attached themselves to her. She imagined schooling Quinny in housewifery, and in some hidden part of her, maybe even becoming like a mother to her, or if not a mother a helpful older sister. (Irene felt her singularity in a male household.) But Quinny’s manner did not allow any of Irene’s vague fantasies to be enacted. There was something feral about her, Irene thought, like a hibernating animal that was only barely house-trained. Not that there was anything to complain about in Quinny’s work. She did the night feeds without complaint, she got Rory up and out to school in the mornings, and gave Owen his breakfast. She would even bring Irene a cup of tea in bed where she was allowed to lie on for the first time in years. Quinny’s attitude to work, though, was graceless. She had a kind of phlegmatic loathing for the tasks Irene herself hated—cleaning the bathroom, ironing the sheets. She handled Fergal with a brusque expertise. (Irene remembered how tentative she’d been as a first-time mother with Rory and she was sure, as a baby, he had sensed that, somehow.) Irene couldn’t identify the source of her unease about Quinny except perhaps that in a very short time, her boys became more attached to Quinny than they were to her. Rory’s face would fall when he came in from school on Wednesdays forgetting it was Quinny’s day off. Owen would trail up to her room and sit on her bed waiting for her to come home. Or if she was doing the ironing—in the dining room with the radio tuned to Luxembourg—he would sit at her feet and play with the rolled-up socks. Irene would watch her to see what it was that Quinny did differently. She ignored the boys benignly, Irene discovered, let them talk and chatter. She didn’t lead their conversations, she followed them. She was like a bigger, duller child. When the children were in bed, Irene would urge Quinny to join Liam and her in the sitting room to watch TV, thinking that this might make her more malleable. “No thanks, Missus,” she would say, “I’ll stay in the kitchen, if you don’t mind.” Or she would go to her room, Irene guiltily seeing her chaste single bed pushed up against the cot, the scarred bedside locker they’d bought second-hand in Christy Bird’s, the curtained-off alcove in place of a proper wardrobe. “We’ve fallen on our feet there,” Liam said, very pleased with himself. They had, Irene had to admit. But still, she wanted more from Quinny, or more of her.

She tried being friendly, gently prodding the maid with the kind of questions that allowed the possibility of another life outside the confines of Vandeleur Drive. Have you friends in the city, do you go to the pictures, or, this said blushingly, do you have a boyfriend? That, Irene suspected, was the rock all maids perished on. No Missus, Quinny would say. But Irene couldn’t believe that. Not of a girl with false eyelashes and a beauty spot. There had to be a romance. Irene’s own young life had been shaped by such certainties, her life before Liam, and what’s more they had been made flesh. As Irene Cardiff, she had once been Miss Ireland. (The inner picture of herself, if she closed her eyes, was wearing the Connolly ball gown with the black velvet bodice, the petalled waistline, and those full skirts of pleated linen gauze, and the two runners-up, like a pair of comely handmaidens, settling the winning sash on her hips; her crowning moment.) People took note of her luminous green eyes and white even teeth, her clear complexion and oatmeal hair, her still pert figure—despite three babies. She could see it in their gaze; she was used to frank admiration. What they didn’t know was that she had once been a beauty queen. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of it. She’d represented her country after all (and reached the final 16 at Miss World in London.) But among her neighbours, wives of clerkly types, legal people, engineers, the Miss World contest would have been regarded as common and shoddy, she was sure. It would lower the tone, that’s what they would think. So when she chatted to Betty Fortune, or Edel Elworthy, and especially Miss Larchet, she mentioned she had been an air hostess before her marriage, but never the beauty queen business. Air hostess was a job, a glamorous occupation; beauty queen was a state of mind. They’d think her a ninny.

     	Her marriage to Liam Devoy had won her a sense of achieved seriousness.  His father had fought in 1916, and he was one of the linchpins of the organizing committee for the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Rising.  That’s who she was in the eyes of neighbours, the capable pretty wife of an up-and-coming civil servant with serious pedigree. If they knew about Miss World, they’d look at her differently.  They’d regard her carefully tended blondeness, her discreet make-up (she never went out of the house without what Liam called her “war paint”), and her stylish clothes as some kind of striving after a station in life to which she was not entitled. 
     	Even if Quinny would not allow herself to be mothered, Irene thought there was one area where she could help.  The girl’s attempts at fashion were ham-fisted, to say the least—that houndstooth skirt was positively slutty—and though Irene was touched by Quinny’s cheap scents, her false eye-lashes, even the beauty spot, they all seemed like a girl playing dress-up. In this, Irene felt hers was precisely the kind of expertise Quinny needed.

“Don’t you think something with a slightly longer hemline would be more flattering?” she suggested one Wednesday afternoon as Quinny headed out in a black pencil skirt half-way up her thigh. Irene had Owen on her hip. Quinny looked at her with an expression between wounded offence and outright hostility. “It’s just,” Irene went on, “that for a girl of your build, something a bit longer might be . . .” “It’s my afternoon off, Missus,” Quinny said mulishly. “Of course,” Irene said, “it’s none of my business. It’s just I have an eye for these things. I . . .” She was going to tell Quinny about being Miss Ireland, thinking she might be impressed with it. “And you know it’s my experience that young men prefer a little bit of mystery.” “What young men?” Quinny asked. Irene could hear the bridling tone, as if she had accused Quinny of something. “A pretty girl like you,” Irene said, “there must be a young man. . . .” How many times had Irene herself heard that line. Flirty, wheedling. “Is that all, Missus?” Quinny interrupted, quite rudely Irene thought. “I’ll be off, so.”

“How do you find her?” she asked Liam though she already knew the answer. For him, Quinny was a problem solved. He didn’t trouble himself about the maid’s social life. “What do you mean?” he asked. “She’s perfectly hard-working, does her job, the children love her. What’s the problem?” “I don’t know,” Irene admitted. Then suddenly fierce. “Then why did she leave the job in the big house in Meath. Close to home and all.” “Close to the home, you mean?” “She came from a home? You didn’t tell me that.” “What difference does it make?” Irene couldn’t have said why, but it did make a difference. There was something shameful about those homes where children were left, if only by the deaths of their unfortunate parents. On one of the red brick avenues near the church, there was a place called The Cottage Home, and though she didn’t know much about it because it was Protestant, Irene always hurried past it (particularly when she had the boys in tow) as if the building itself, like a house in a fairy tale, might reach out and devour them. The face of the home was austere. Grey unpainted plaster; long, thin windows set in deep embrasures, which gave them a hooded look; gravel out front where a garden should have been. But the most forbidding thing about The Cottage Home was that there was never any sign of life there. No evidence at all, in fact, of children.

The fact that Quinny was an orphan quelled Irene’s uneasiness for a while. The girl simply wasn’t used to a good family, or any family at all, for that matter. That was it. That must be it. But then she began to worry if Quinny was damaged goods, in some way. Should they have looked for references for her? When they’d hired her, word-of-mouth had seemed recommendation enough, particularly when it was from Enda Dowd, the assistant secretary in Liam’s Department. “Ask him,” Irene urged Liam, “why it was she left the job in the castle.” “Lord God, Irene, would you leave it be? You’re only making a problem where there isn’t one.” But then there was. It was a stupid thing, really, but afterwards Irene was sorry she hadn’t acted.

    	The children were in the playroom in the extension.  It had been built on to the back of the house by the previous owners, an elderly couple, who had used it to grow plants.  It was no more than a glass lean-to, but some day when the boys were grown, Irene determined that she would deck it out with bamboo blinds and cane furniture and turn it into a sunroom.  But for now it was for the kids, a place for them to let off steam when it was raining, as it was that day.  The Fortune twins had come over to play.  Kitty and Liv were a few years older than Rory, and Irene had always thought them a civilising influence.  Also, she wanted her boys to mix with little girls; soon enough they would be packed off to boarding school, as Liam had been, where the female of the species would be reduced to uniforms of Matron and Nurse.
    	It was a Wednesday, and Irene was feeding Fergal in the kitchen.  Quinny was about to leave for her afternoon off.  It had, she’d noticed, gone awfully quiet in the playroom and she asked Quinny if she’d mind checking on the children before she went.  The only entrance to the playroom was from the garden, so Quinny went outside.  What Irene heard next was Quinny screaming.  She thought there’d been some kind of accident, and she rushed out, her heart thumping, with Fergal in her arms still sucking greedily on his bottle.  Thank God, she was thinking, Quinny is still here.
     	But there was no accident.  Quinny was standing just inside the open doorway of the playroom, gripping the door handle.

“It’s a sacrilege, a sacrilege, do you hear. Do you understand?” she was shouting. Beyond her, Irene could see Rory and one of the Fortune twins draped comically in a pair of red velveteen curtains she’d recently taken down because they were past their best. Owen was kneeling in front of them, swathed in a bed sheet. Irene found herself stifling a smile—the female influence of the Fortune twins was obviously making itself felt. “What is it?” she asked stepping into the frozen scene, still expecting to see blood.

“Your boy,” Quinny said accusingly, “your boy has committed a sacrilege.”  There was a catch of grief in her voice.

“We were playing Mass,” Rory rushed to defend himself. “I’m Canon Burke, Liv’s Father Dolan, Owen is the altar boy, and Kitty is the audience.” “Congregation,” Irene found herself saying. “It’s still a sacrilege, Missus,” Quinny said, gulping noisily, “making a mockery of the holy sacrament.” Her breath was coming high and fast, her cheeks were flushed. Irene handed the baby over to Kitty, the more capable of the twins, and put her arm around Quinny, who was heaving dry tears. Hyperventilation. She’d seen it a couple of times with nervous flyers in her time. “Take a deep breath, there’s a good girl,” she said as the children looked on aghast. What a strange reversal this was, she thought, being in the position of comforting Quinny. “I’m sure the children meant no harm by it.” “It’s a mortal sin,” Quinny said. “They’re only children. . . .” Irene said. “It doesn’t matter,” Quinny said, “it’s still a mortal sin.” “I’m sure the boys didn’t mean any harm by it, did you boys?” She couldn’t presume to speak for the Fortunes. “Those twins put them up to it,” Quinny said. “Rory will make a good confession about it and that’ll be the end of it,” Irene said decisively. “Isn’t that so?” Rory nodded gravely. “They were using Tom Thumbs as the Sacred Host,” Quinny persisted. Irene saw the offending bag of sweets sitting on a kitchen plate on the floor. They were Rory’s, and Irene was rather touched that he had offered his personal hoard up for the sake of verisimilitude. “Maybe Kitty and Liv should run along home now,” Irene said. She was tiring of trying to console Quinny, who seemed so adamant in her refusal. Kitty handed Fergal back. The twins looked relieved to be out of the line of fire. “Now,” Irene said to Quinny, “why don’t we make you a nice cup of tea and we can all calm down.” Rory, she could see, was quite shocked at this strange behaviour of Quinny’s. Owen was simply confused. “You go put the kettle on, Quinny,” she said, figuring that, as with an upset child, distraction was the best policy. But Quinny just stood there. “Are you going to sack me, Missus?” And that’s when Irene should have said yes.

“Well, it’s hardly a hanging offence,” Liam said when she told him about it. “And, at least it proves she’s pious.” But, Irene wanted to say, what I saw was not piety but terror. Quinny had been more terrified than the children were, terrified of them and what they had done. As if she expected instant retribution. She was a religious girl—Irene had seen the holy water bottle in her room, the missal. She went to early Mass every Sunday, but there was nothing to account for this kind of zeal. Irene found herself examining her own conscience. She was a believer, of course, but she didn’t go in for craw-thumping. She prayed spasmodically, but more out of desperation than routine. Hurried imprecations to stem panic, bargains offered in return for specific favours. She began to see how childish and lazy her faith was. How lax and deficient she must seem to someone of Quinny’s fanatical heart. She felt herself already judged in Quinny’s eyes for not punishing Rory. She would have to do something, or be seen to do something. Cravenly, she followed Quinny’s lead and blamed the Fortune twins for the whole business. “I’ve told Kitty and Liv’s mother that it might be better if they didn’t come over for a while,” Irene told Quinny, even though she realised she was engaging in appeasement. Appeasing Quinny. What she said to Betty Fortune was quite different. “The maid,” she said, adopting an air of helpless fatalism, “seems to have taken some kind of set against your girls.” And that seemed to be the end of it.

The episode had its consequences; it made Rory wary of Quinny. He was nervous by disposition, and Irene knew he feared another outburst, particularly since the first one had been aimed at him. But Owen’s devotion remained. If anything, it grew. He wanted only Quinny to bathe him, or to read him his bedtime story. Irene wondered if this was her younger son’s attempt at appeasement. Or was it the other way around? Since the sacrilege incident, Quinny had taken to favouring Owen, as if he were her primary responsibility. “How’s my little Oweny?” she would croon and his little face would light up. He’d clamber up on her, and she would nuzzle him and whisper to him. Irene began to feel gently elbowed out. In the afternoons, Quinny would take Owen into her bed for his nap, and Owen wouldn’t settle anywhere else. Irene found herself knocking tentatively at Quinny’s door when nap time was up. “If Owen sleeps too much during the day, he’ll be awake half the night,” she would entreat. “Sure, I’ll mind him, Missus—don’t I always?” This directed at Owen who looked up adoringly at Quinny. Like a depiction of the Virgin and Child, Irene thought. Irene felt panicky; could a child be killed with kindness? The balance of power had shifted, and she was afraid. Afraid of the maid.

In the meantime, though, there were the summer holidays. They rented a chalet in Courtown for the month of July. Irene took Quinny and Liam came at the weekends, work allowing, so Irene’s memories of that summer were all Quinny. At close quarters in the chalet, Irene realised how solitary the girl was. It came as a soft shock. Irene tried to compensate. When they went for treats, Irene would determinedly include her. Sticks of candyfloss, ice cream cones, a matinée at the cinema even though there were only cartoons showing. When they went to the carnival, she doled out small change to Quinny as if she were an honorary child, though she was 19 and Irene feared she might be offended. But she didn’t seem to be. At the Spin The Wheel, Quinny won a pink bunny rabbit, which she presented to Owen, although it would have been more suitable for the baby, Irene thought. Owen was delighted. He hung on to that bunny for years. Refused to let Irene take it away, even to wash it, so that it became a grubby talisman of Quinny’s that would not be banished. In the light of what happened, Irene felt she couldn’t deny him.

    	The weather was glorious.  So hot that the tar on the road to the beach melted and the children’s feet stuck to it.  She remembered having to stop Owen scraping the black stuff off with his fingers and eating it; he thought it was liquorice. There were long lazy days of picnics and sandcastles and dips in the sea.  Quinny was not equipped for the seaside, Irene noticed.  She had no swimwear, and she seemed to have nothing even vaguely summery in her wardrobe.  Her only concession to the heat was that she dispensed with stockings.  Her legs looked pale and sorrowful stuck in her kitten heels and she didn’t shave her legs, Irene saw, so there was quite a thicket growing there.  Irene offered her one of her old bathing suits, though she thought it would be a bit of a squeeze for Quinny to get into it since she was much better endowed on top than Irene was.  (Miss Pays-Bas had told her that was why Irene hadn’t got into the top five in London.  Vulgar creature.)

“It’s alright, Missus,” Quinny said, “I’m not much good with water. Can’t swim.” Irene felt sorry for her. While she and Owen paddled in the shallows and Rory bobbed in the breakers, Quinny sat miserably behind the candy-striped windbreaker looking after Fergal. It made Irene feel like a girl again, larking about in the surf with the boys, while Quinny seemed more like the mother, sitting in the shade and watching their fun remotely. And Owen was returned to her. He could not resist the fun of the water, the one place Quinny couldn’t follow.

    	But with Quinny there was always the grit in the oyster. One afternoon when Irene had gone to the beach shop, Quinny had let Owen—it would be Owen, of course—bury his sandals.  They were newly bought, the ones with the clover pattern and the blonde soles.  Quinny was always engaging in this kind of play with them, Irene thought crossly, not supervising them but sinking to their level. When she came back with a net of oranges for the children (no crisps and chocolate bars for her boys; she insisted on healthy snacks to protect their teeth), she interrupted their game so it wasn’t until they were getting ready to pack up and go that the absence of the sandals was discovered. Irene was furious. 

“They can’t have gone too deep,” Quinny said when they started their search. But an hour later, when Irene and the boys were reduced to dogs, scrabbling at the sand with their paws, her nonchalance had disappeared. “Where did you last see them?” Irene demanded. “I don’t know,” Quinny said forlornly. “That was the whole point of the game.” They excavated until the sand all around their encampment was a field of coarse rubble. Owen used his spade and thought it all part of the silly game Quinny had started. Towards the end, Rory let out a victorious halloo when he unearthed one sandal. But that was nearly worse. What good was one? The light began to fail. The beach was deserted now, and they were steeped in a chilly salmon-coloured dusk. The children were getting shivery, the baby in Quinny’s arms yelling to be fed, but Irene insisted they continue. She’d wanted to punish Quinny, but in the end, the children had been made to suffer by the fruitless search. There’d be trouble, Irene knew. Liam couldn’t stand the idea of waste. He wasn’t tight-fisted, exactly, but he was frugal by nature so that she had to account for every penny of her housekeeping allowance. She was thriftier than he knew—she still had that Connolly gown and all her other beauty queen finery. In case, she told herself, in case she might find an occasion—some function to do with Liam’s work, maybe—where she could wear them again. But, she suspected, those taffeta and satin dresses lovingly preserved in their plastic shrouds, represented something different to Liam. For him, they spoke of an extravagant nature that might sprout again at any moment. The very things that had attracted him—her style, her poise— had become vices that must be reined in. “The price of Owen’s sandals will come out of your wages,” she said to Quinny as they trooped back home through the darkening dunes. “Yes, Missus,” was all Quinny said.

The days at the beach were memorialized—not in holiday snaps because Irene was useless with the camera; that was Liam’s domain—but by an unseen hand. On one of those long lazy days a John Hinde postcard photographer had captured the scene. Two years later, when Irene had had the courage to return to Courtown, Owen spotted the card on the swivel rack in the beachside shop. “Look, look,” he screamed, “it’s Quinny!” Irene ignored him as he tugged at her sleeve. It was a scene that had been replayed again and again. The sight of any long-haired girl on the street could prompt him. He would run after them, calling out Quinny’s name, Irene in resentful pursuit. She was weary of trying to explain to long-haired strangers why her son was clinging to them. The sightings on the street were always heartbreaking; he would be inconsolable for days, crushed by the enormity of his own expectation. “Now, Owen, you know it can’t be Quinny. Quinny is . . .” Irene didn’t like to use the word. “But she’s here,” Owen insisted waving the card at her. “Look, look.”

 	He was getting so hysterical that she bent down to look at the card, and she realised that Owen was right.  The photographer must have stood in the dunes at the curve of the beach—the view was a long one.  The sky blared blue. Irene and her boys were reduced to heads bobbing in the frothy water, but Quinny’s face was captured quite clearly in side-view, and wearing Irene’s straw sun hat.  Some old sense of propriety flared in Irene.

“You’re absolutely right, Owen,” she said, feeling her own voice tremble. She bought the card to appease him and in the hope that it might provide solace. But part of her wished he had never seen it. While Owen was in the world, she realised, Quinny would have a hold over her.

Quinny took Owen on a morning in September, well not exactly took him, she was technically in charge of him. Irene didn’t know how to explain this—Quinny went missing, and for several hours she had no idea where her son was (though she never told Liam this.) Quinny was supposed to be taking Owen to the barber—his first big boy cut. Up to then, Irene had used the scissors on his baby curls, but she’d decided it was time. Time to let go. This was the first step on his journey to boarding school; Irene reckoned she’d better get used to it. In a year’s time, Rory would be sent there.

    They set off at eleven, Owen happily (a jaunt with Quinny!), and Irene expected them back within the hour.  When lunchtime came and there was no sign of them, Irene began to fret.  The barber shop was only in the village, a ten-minute walk away.  She considered putting Fergal in the pram and going in search of them, but Rory would be in from school for his lunch so she couldn’t leave.  When Rory arrived, she pretended nothing; she fed him and he went back to school.  She put Fergal down for his nap—it was 2.30 now, and for the first time she gave into panic.  Where could they be? Had there been an accident?  She thought of ringing Liam at the office, but she didn’t.  She didn’t want to disturb him, and she didn’t want to be accused of scare-mongering, once more making a mountain out of a molehill where Quinny was concerned.   Anyway, she felt vaguely implicated—why hadn’t she brought Owen to the barber’s herself and left Quinny with the baby?  Wasn’t it Fergal Quinny was employed to mind, in the first place?  	

Rory came in from school and asked mildly where Owen and Quinny were. “They’re having a day in town,” Irene lied. The lie emboldened her—this is what she would say to Liam. Already she was thinking ahead. This way it would appear as if the trip was sanctioned, instead of their toddler son being missing for the best part of the day and Irene having done nothing about it.

At six she heard the key in the door and rushed into the hallway, praying it wasn’t Liam because now she was more afraid of his censure than the fact that Owen was missing. A tousled-looking Owen appeared holding Quinny’s hand. He was filthy. There was grime on his face and chocolate stains around his mouth. His baby curls, she noticed, were still intact. “Thank God,” she said, forgetting to be cross with Quinny. “I was out of my mind with worry. Where have you been?” “We went up the Pillar,” Owen declared proudly. Irene looked at Quinny. “Nelson’s Pillar?” She was expecting a rush of apology, some abject excuse for keeping the child out for seven hours, some explanation, but Quinny said nothing. “I’ll bring him up for his bath, Missus,” was all she said as if she was simply resuming duties. She led Owen upstairs. (He kicked up a terrible fuss when Irene insisted on a bath, but with Quinny, he was always docile.) By the time Liam came home, a scrubbed and dressing-gowned Owen was having his tea with Rory, and everything was back to normal. Irene was relieved she didn’t have to explain her neglectful part in the affair. But she was determined to get to the bottom of it. Tomorrow, she would tackle Quinny.

But she didn’t. She interrogated Owen instead. “We were on the bus,” he said. That was a novelty for him. “On the upstairs.” “And what about Nelson’s Pillar?” “It was dark,” he said, “but Quinny held my hand.” Irene had never been inside the Pillar. There were 168 steps that wound up in a spiral to a viewing platform at the top. Liam had wanted to take her during their courtship, but Irene hadn’t like the sound of it. “You can see for miles from up there,” he had said. But it was the enclosure Irene was afraid of, the seeping granite walls, the imprisonment of it. “And what did you eat?” Irene asked, because Owen was fond of his food. “Crips,” he answered. “Crisps,” she corrected, though usually she found his lisp endearing. He nodded. “And chocolate?” Irene prompted, remembering his muddy mouth. “And what else?” His brow furrowed in concentration. “Quinny has a little boy,” he volunteered. “What do you mean?” Irene said, and she shook him. “I’m her little boy,” Owen said and smiled cheesily. It was the closest Irene ever came to striking one of her children. She raised her hand, then let it fall.

Over the following weeks, there were several more disappearances though none as alarming as that first time. If Irene asked Quinny to run to the shops, she would always take Owen with her, and the errands took longer than they should have. She would take detours to the park (Owen loved the swings). She took him to the sheep field—Quinny seemed to know all the secret places in the neighbourhood. They went to view the building site. Eight new houses were being built on to the end of Vandeleur Drive. There were pyramids of gravel and sand on the road and the churning of cement mixers all day. Quinny took him around the grounds of St Jude’s, the cancer hospital at the end of the avenue. Owen came back from that expedition excitedly proclaiming he’d seen the bald children. Irene had ruled St. Jude’s out of bounds precisely because there were children there, sick and dying children whom she didn’t want Rory or Owen exposed to. “St. Jude’s is no place for him,” she said to Quinny. But what was meant as a reprimand came out feebly, and still Quinny made no apology. “Nita asked us in,” she said. “Isn’t that right, Oweny?” His name is not Oweny. Nita Dark lived in the gate lodge at the entrance to the hospital. Mother of a little black boy who was in Low Babies with Owen. Irene was not sure she approved but Owen and Mo were friends, so she couldn’t exactly forbid the association. But she didn’t want to encourage it either. The first day he’d come home from school, Owen had asked why Mo was a different colour. “He’s a baby from the missions,” Irene had lied, furious at having to defend Nita Dark’s unsavoury morals. “He’s from Africa.” Trust Quinny to pal up with Nita Dark, of all people. “She’s a brave woman,” Quinny said as if reading Irene’s mind. “Or foolish,” Irene said. Quinny made a dissatisfied pout, like a child being corrected. Then she lifted Owen up and carried him off to give him his lunch. Irene felt wrong-footed. As always with Quinny, they never got to talk about the real trouble.

The day, that day, it was Liam who found her. He had Owen in his arms and as soon as he put the key in the front door he could smell the gas. “Stay back,” he shouted at Irene and Rory, who were trailing in behind him. But in his panic he carried Owen into the kitchen so Owen saw. “Holy Jesus!” Liam cried and shut the door on the sight. “What is it?” Irene asked. “Quinny is praying,” Owen said.

It made them notorious. The house where the maid had gassed herself. What could drive a girl to do such a thing—Irene saw that question in the eyes of her neighbours. An unwanted pregnancy. That’s what they thought, Irene was sure, and they would look at her and wonder why she hadn’t exerted her authority more firmly. How could she explain that was not it at all? With Quinny the worst had already happened, before she had ever darkened the Devoys’ door. It was nothing I did, Irene wanted to say, but of course, this being Vandeleur Drive, no one came out with any such accusations.

    	She and Liam went to the funeral in a country church near Kells, though Irene didn’t want to.

“We have to,” Liam said, “we were in loco parentis.” “She was the maid, Liam, for god’s sake.” The maid who had tried to purloin her son and then did this to them! Brought disreputable death into their midst. Quinny couldn’t even be buried in consecrated ground because of what she’d done.

    	Her parents were there, her father a rough-looking man unkempt with grief, her mother a version of what Quinny might have become.  Fleshy, jowly with startling high-built black hair.  Quinny also had two brothers, it turned out.  Grown men, large, bewildered.

“I thought you said she was an orphan,” Irene hissed at Liam as they travelled gingerly up the aisle of the church to extend their condolences. “I said a home,” Liam said crossly, Mr. Etc. suddenly a stickler for distinctions, “a mother and baby home.” “Oh,” Irene said. “She gave the child up,” Liam muttered. Chastened, Irene kept her head bowed beneath her black mantilla and let Liam do the talking when they shook Quinny’s mother hand at the top of the church. This new knowledge about Quinny should have helped, but it didn’t. It satisfied Liam, but it left her in the dark.

A lot of things happened that year. There was the Rising commemoration, which went off without a hitch and won Liam a promotion. The railway stations were renamed for the signatories of the Proclamation. The Pillar was blown up by hotheads who said Nelson shouldn’t be lording it over them. Irene was secretly delighted; another place associated with Quinny reduced to ruin. At the end of the year, the new houses being built at the end of the street were finished. As a result, everyone on Vandeleur Drive got a new house number. The Devoys lost number 27 and inherited 10 instead. Quinny’s associations were gradually dwindling.

   	 But the dead maid remained lodged in Irene’s mind. And in Owen’s too, Irene was sure, though the running after strangers in the street did stop, and her name so often invoked in the early days also fell away.  But some things stuck.  Even years afterwards, and with another new baby in the house, Owen still called the nursery Quinny’s room.  Irene felt his loyalty to the dead maid as a constant rebuke between them, as if there was blame attached.  When the time came for Owen to be sent off to boarding school, she quietly welcomed it.  There had been scenes with Rory; tears, hers, her eyes red for days on end.  The gap he left at the dinner table, his unslept-in bed in the boys’ room, his favourite books in Owen or Fergal’s hands, wounded her, as if there’d been a death in the family.  But with Owen, there was only guilty relief.  Now there would be no more Quinny ambushes.  If that’s what it took to be finally shut of her, Irene thought, hardening her heart, then so be it.

“See,” Liam had said to her when she deposited Owen dry-eyed in the big dormitory. “I told you it would get easier.”


Nearly three decades later, when Owen brought Kim home and announced he was marrying her, the ghost of Quinny rose again. Not that Kim looked in the slightest bit like Quinny, apart from her hair, long and silky and down to her waist. Otherwise, though, she was petite and sallow, a trained pharmacist. And Oriental, for god’s sake. One of those unfortunate boat people. “You can be the daughter my mother never had,” Owen said to Kim in that half-mocking way he talked about her, in her presence. “Isn’t that right, Irene?” (He had long ago stopped calling her Mum.)

    	But Irene would not make that mistake again.  Looking at her future daughter-in-law, she felt only a disowning surge of triumph.  She worried how Liam would take to the prospect of little Vietnamese grandchildren in the Devoy family line, but unlike him, she could afford to be magnanimous; she was not seeking to gain a daughter, but to lose a son, this time for good.