Rainbow's End by Katie Flynn Page A

stubbornly. ‘I want to stay near Durvan. Him and me are promised.’
    ‘You’re nothin’ but a pair of children,’ Grainne had said furiously. It wasn’t fair! Fidelma was a child, it should be she, it should be she . . .
    ‘You’re a jealous cat!’ Fidelma had shouted, face scarlet, tears starting. ‘You were happy enough to stay when you t’ought you were goin’ to marry William. Well, I won’t leave me lovely Durvan, I’ll stay wit’ him, his mammy likes me . . .’
    ‘You’ll come wit’ us, an’ give a hand,’ Grainne had said coldly, implacably. ‘The Caseys don’t want an extry mouth to feed an’ well you know it. Fid, we’ll both of us have to work, so we shall, an’ then, one day, we’ll mebbe come home.’
    Fidelma had snorted. ‘Is that what you want? To work like a slave until you’re an old woman and then to come home to find William even more mad than he is already? To find him drooling after you, pawing at your clothes, saying pretty, pretty, pretty ? You want to t’ink about gettin’ yourself a real man, Grainne, before you’re too old to be a wife!’
    ‘Oh, and Durvan’s a real man , is he? Well, if he is, he ought to t’ink about gettin’ himself a real woman , Fid, an’ not a spoilt child!’
    The sisters glared at each other, Grainne’s fingers itching to slap her sister across her increasingly pretty, increasingly appealing little face.
    ‘Dadda, did you hear what Grainne called me? A spoilt child, she called me, an’ me only wantin’ to go to me intended. She’s jealous, Dadda.’
    Quarrels like this sprang up all the time now, as the tension caused by their troubles stretched their nerves to snapping point.
    Paddy flapped a hand at them. ‘We’re all goin’, and we’ll all come back when the time’s ripe,’ he declared. ‘No more quarrellin’ from either one of ye or I’ll do something desp’rit!’
    So now here they were, with their few possessions on the handcart, setting out for Dublin. Fidelma with a face like thunder, Grainne pale and sad, and the other children clinging together, clutching Tinker, sobbing quietly.
    They missed their dead sisters, of course, Grainne told herself. As did she. She really did. But none of them knew pain like hers. She missed William so badly and felt such terrible sadness for him, yet still there was the longing, hot in the pit of her stomach, for their closeness, which had gone for ever.
    She walked along the dusty road beside Fidelma and glanced timidly at her sister from time to time. Finally, she laid a hand on her arm. ‘Fid . . . I’m sorry for all the things I’ve said and the way I’ve behaved, honest to God I am. There’s a reason for it, indeed there is, one day you’ll understand that I can’t help the way I feel. But we’ve got to pull together now, and I’ll try me very best to be fair to you and to please you. Will you give me a kiss now, an’ be friends?’
    ‘No,’ Fidelma said coldly. ‘You’re me enemy, Grainne Feeney. You don’t want me to be happy wit’ me Durvan because you can’t have your loony William. Just you leave me alone an’ I’ll leave you alone.’
    ‘You’re a cruel bitch, Fidelma,’ Grainne whispered. ‘I hope to God one day you have an ache inside you that hurts you as much as it hurts me now.’
    ‘I hope to God you go on hurting for the rest of your natural life,’ Fidelma hissed, for they knew better than to quarrel aloud after their father’s many threats. ‘And don’t think I’m goin’ to live wit’ you when we get to Dublin, for I am not! I’ll move away from you the first chance I get – as far as possible, what’s more.’
    ‘You’re not alone, Fidelma Feeney, for I don’t intend to live anywhere near you whiles I’ve breath in me body. Right, then. It’s war between us two, then?’
    ‘War,’ confirmed Fidelma between her small white teeth, which were gripping her lower lip as if they would bite it in two. ‘And may you rot