Then the glass mobiles in the field exploded all around us, shattered into millions of pieces and I lost Laurie’s hand. I heard Dad scream my name and I opened my eyes. The room was filled with glass, it was all over our bodies, all over the ground and the smoke was pluming out through the window. I saw a claw, a giant yellow claw, disappear through the glass and the smoke drifted out. But it didn’t stop the fire. It ravaged the photographs, racing through them with such speed and ferocity it was eating away at everything around us and leaving us until last. We would be next. Then I saw Arthur. I saw Sister Ignatius. I saw my mother’s face, alive, present, terrified. She was outside, moving, talking and, despite her alarm, I was relieved. Then there were arms around me and I was outside, coughing, spluttering. I couldn’t breathe, I was on the grass. Before I closed my eyes I saw my mother, felt her kissing my head, then saw her embracing Laurie, crying and crying, her tears falling onto his head as if they alone could put out the fire between them.

For the first time since I’d found my father on the floor of his office, I exhaled.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived in a bungalow. She was the youngest child, with an intelligent older sister, and cute older brother so handsome that he turned heads in the street, invited conversations with strangers. The little girl was what some people would call a surprise baby. To her parents, who had long finished having children, she was not just unplanned but unwanted and that she knew well. At forty-seven years old and twenty-two years since she’d had her last baby, her mother was not prepared for the arrival of another child. Her children had grown up and moved away, her daughter Helen to Cork to be a primary school teacher and her son Brian to Boston, where he was a computer analyst. They rarely came home. It was too expensive for Brian, and her mother preferred to go to Cork for holidays. The little girl didn’t know these two strangers she rarely met and who called themselves her brother and sister. They had children older than she; they knew little of who she was or what she wanted. She’d arrived too late, she’d missed the bonding that they had all had together.

Her father was the gillie at Kilsaney Castle grounds, which was across the road from her home. Her mother was the cook. The little girl loved the position her family were in, so close to such grandeur that the children at school considered her to be a part of it too. She loved that they were privy to bits of gossip that nobody else was. They were always the benefactors of great Christmas bonuses, leftover food, fabrics or wallpapers from recent refurbishings or clear-outs. The grounds were strictly private but the little girl was allowed to play inside its walls. It was an absolute honour for her and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to please the family, such as odd jobs around the house, running from her father Joe to the groundsman, Paddy, with messages from her mother on what to catch that day, what vegetables to choose for dinner.

She loved the days she was allowed to enter the castle. If she was off sick from school her mother couldn’t very well leave her at home. They were good like that, Mr and Mrs Kilsaney. They allowed her mother to bring her child to work, knowing there was nowhere else she could possibly leave her child and there was nobody else who could take care of their three meals a day so well, feeding them so well with money that was lessening by the year. The little girl would remain quiet in the corner of the great big kitchen where she’d watch her mother sweat all day over steaming pots and a roaring Aga. She would be quiet, never giving any trouble, but she’d take it all in. She’d take in her mother’s cooking but also she absorbed the goings-on in the house.

She noticed how, whenever Mr Kilsaney had a decision to make, he’d disappear into the oak room and stand in the middle with his hands behind his back while he stared at the portraits of his forefathers, who grandly watched over him from their great big oil paintings with elaborate gold framing. He would exit the oak room, chin high, fired into action as though he was a soldier who’d just received a good talking-to from his sergeant-major.

She also saw how Mrs Kilsaney, who was so besotted with her nine dogs and ran around the house in a frenzy, trying to catch them, failed to notice much of what went on around her. She paid more attention to her dogs, in particular the mischievous King Charles spaniel named Messy, who remained the only dog who couldn’t be tamed and who took up most of her thoughts and most of her conversation. She didn’t notice her two young boys play-acting around the halls for her attention, or her husband’s fondness for the none-too-attractive chambermaid Magdelene, who revealed a black tooth when she smiled and who spent much time dusting the Kilsaneys’ master bedroom when Mrs Kilsaney was outdoors with the dogs.

The little girl noticed that what made Mrs Kilsaney mad was dead flowers. She would inspect every vase as she passed, almost as though it were an obsession. She would smile with delight when the nun would arrive every third morning with fresh bouquets from her walled garden. Then, as soon as the door closed, she would pick at them, while grumbling, pulling out anything that was less than perfect. The little girl loved Mrs Kilsaney, loved her tweed suits and brown riding boots, which she wore even on days when she wasn’t riding. However, the little girl decided she would never allow so much to go on in her own home without her knowing. She adored the mistress, but she thought her a fool.

She didn’t think much of the husband frolicking in plain sight with the ugly chambermaid, tickling her behind with a feather duster and acting younger than the little girl herself. He thought she was too young to notice him, too young to understand. She didn’t much like him, but he thought her a fool.

She watched everything. She made a pact with herself always to know everything going on in her home.

She loved watching the two boys. They were always up to mischief, always racing around the halls knocking things over, breaking things, making the chambermaid scream, causing a ruckus. It was the older one she watched all of the time. It was always he who initiated the plan. The younger one who was more sensible and went along with it only because he wanted to look out for his older brother. Laurence was the elder, or Laurie, as they called him. He never noticed the little girl, but she was always there on the outskirts, feeling involved without being invited, playing along in her imagination.

The younger boy, Arthur, or Artie, as they called him, noticed her. He didn’t invite her to play, he didn’t do anything of his own accord, he merely followed his brother’s ideas, but if Laurie did something silly he’d look to the little girl and roll his eyes or make a joke for her benefit. She’d rather he didn’t. It was Laurie she wanted to notice her and the more he didn’t see her, the greater her longing grew. Sometimes when he was alone and running, she would deliberately stand in his way. She’d want him at least to look at her or stop, or shout at her, but he never did. He ran around her. If he was searching for Artie in a game of hide-and-seek, she’d help him by pointing out his hiding place. He wouldn’t acknowledge her, he’d search somewhere else, then shout to Artie that he was giving up. He wanted nothing from her.

The little girl stayed home from school a lot, just so she could spend time in the castle. Summer holidays were the best, having every day free to herself around the grounds without having to pretend to cough or to have a sore tummy. It was during one of these summers, when the little girl was seven, Artie was eight and Laurie was nine that she was outside in the grounds playing alone as always when her mother called her to the castle. The Kilsaneys were gone out for the day, fox-hunting with their cousins in Balbriggan. Mrs Kilsaney had called her up to her room to help her pick out her dress, a floor-length silk olive-coloured dress, to be worn with pearls and a fur coat. The little girl’s mother was in charge for the day and when she reached the front of the castle she could tell from the look on the boys’ faces that they were in trouble.