Small Things Like These

Content Warning: The source text contains depictions of physical and emotional abuse.

This chapter sets up the atmosphere of a cold, perennially rainy Irish fall in the 1980s. It is a place where laundry never dries, and it is institutionally Catholic, although not everyone says the rosary. Eastern European people—Polish and Russian boatmen—are beginning to immigrate to the area. Bill Furlong, a seller of coal, turf, kindling, and bottled gas, employs these men and others. At lunchtime, they go to Mrs. Kehoe’s for replenishment.

Furlong is the son of a single mother who worked as a domestic servant for Mrs. Wilson, a wealthy Protestant widow. His maternal relatives disowned them, but Mrs. Wilson kept Sarah Furlong employed. Furlong was born on April 1, 1946, April Fool’s Day. Some people wondered if he would turn out to be a “fool.”

Furlong grew up under Mrs. Wilson’s protection, and her high social status as the owner of the formally British aristocratic “big house had given him some leeway, and protection” (9). After leaving school, he went on to technical school; when he graduated, he did the same jobs that his men do now before he worked his way up to becoming a business owner.