Small Things Like These

Eileen is grateful when Furlong returns with the money gift from the nuns, but she comments that he looks out of sorts. She insists that he hurry and change for second Mass, which he attends, reluctantly, with his wife and his daughters. Furlong “didn’t join in so much as listen” (49), as the Mass strikes him as especially performative today. Later, he is restless at home while his family engages in Christmas preparations, so he says that he is going to take some mince pies to his friend Ned, the farmhand who worked at Mrs. Wilson’s with his mother. Eileen says that Ned is welcome to come to dinner on Christmas.

Furlong remembers an occasion just after Kathleen was born when he went to see Ned and asked him who his father was. Ned replied that lots of visitors came over from England to visit the Wilsons, and one of them might have slept with his mother. However, on this occasion, when he tries to visit Ned, a woman with an Enniscorthy accent tells him that Ned was previously in the hospital with pneumonia but is now convalescing in a home.