Frankie McCafferty

Good-hearted, optimistic Nancy.

Smiling as she swims upriver against the tide, against the world, against herself.

Cortland weighs the sausages, lifting Nancy's bag of just not enough sausages off the scales at one pound of imperial measurement, and adding two, four, six, eight extra sausages.

Nancy reddens.

I might try it another day, Mr. Alexander.

Nancy is confused.

She is trying to find the catch, but she can't find the words to ask how much it will all cost.

Cortland fills a bag with chunks of stewing beef.

He hands it to her.

Nancy is no less confused.

Like a sort of a review?

Yes, exactly.

A review.

Nancy, still confused, takes the bags of meat.

She smiles, gathers together her children and sissy fusses out the door.

Humming a tune, she walks, pram pushes and child drags her family up hill to the wrong end of town.

Jauntily she goes, towards the too close together, no back garden, cars up on blocks, bin burnt, graffiti walled, fly tip of a county council ignored housing estate she calls home.

Cortland's heart follows Nancy up the road and all the way to her front door.

It waits to see her safely in and, turning on its heels, returns to the butcher's shop.

Stevedore armed, lycra shirted, milk and protein fed, GAA for his DNA, young Keogh of the crossroads, white toothed and big eared, orders.