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Before seven the light over Belfast had only begun to take the soot out of the brickwork when Jean McCready knocked twice on her grandfather's bedroom door and heard the bedsprings complain before he did. She had already put water on for tea, although Samuel had told her the night before that he was perfectly capable of making his own breakfast and had repeated it with the grave offence of a man who believed grandchildren could become tyrants if not checked early. When he came into the kitchen he wore his good dark trousers, a collarless shirt and a cardigan that had been darned at one elbow. His jacket hung from two fingers. He looked at the tea, then at Jean, who was buttering toast at the table. "There was no need for all that," he said. Jean slid the plate toward him. "There's toast." Samuel sat. "I can see there's toast."

She kept buttering the second piece. He watched her long enough to make the corner of her mouth twitch, then picked up the first slice and began to eat. The radio was off. The polling card lay beside his saucer, flattened beneath the sugar bowl so that neither of them could misplace it by looking directly at it. Outside, the milk float rattled over the end of the street, bottles touching one another in their crates. Jean heard doors open one after another along the terrace, men calling quiet greetings, a woman telling a child to get back inside and find his shoes. Samuel drank half his tea before saying, "You're not wearing that coat." Jean looked down at the short cream raincoat she had put on over her dress. "What's wrong with it?" He tore toast with his fingers. "Nothing. It'll rain through it in five minutes." "It's not raining." "It knows where we live." Jean rolled her eyes but went for the heavier navy coat hanging behind the kitchen door. Samuel did not smile until her back was turned.

They left with Samuel's black umbrella tucked under his arm and Jean carrying nothing, because he had rejected every suggestion that she take his card, his spectacles, the umbrella or his arm. He moved slowly but not uncertainly. The first few houses had curtains still drawn; farther down, Mrs. Bell was sweeping yesterday's grit from her step as though referendum day had been invented to give her more pavement to inspect. "Morning, Sam," she called. Samuel tipped his chin. "Morning, Elsie." She looked at Jean. "You're taking him to vote, are you?" Samuel stopped just long enough to turn his head. "I'm taking her for a walk." Mrs. Bell laughed and Jean said nothing until they had reached the corner. "You could've let me answer." "You were going to say something cheeky." "I wasn't." "Then I've saved you the trouble." He crossed the road after looking both ways with exaggerated care, not because traffic was heavy but because Jean had started to hover half a pace closer whenever they came to a kerb. She caught herself and stepped back. A bus sighed at the stop ahead of them. Two men in work clothes got off, each with a folded newspaper under his arm, and one called Samuel's name. He had worked with both at the yard before retirement, though Jean knew them only as Mr. Laird and Tommy-with-the-thumb, the latter because a machine accident had shortened one thumb and nobody in the family remembered his surname without effort. They stood near the shelter talking about the weather, the state of the road and somebody's leaking shed roof. The referendum entered the conversation only when Mr. Laird jerked his head toward the school and said, "Queue yet?" Tommy-with-the-thumb said, "Half a dozen when I passed." Samuel nodded. Nobody asked how anybody meant to vote.

At the school gate the first rain arrived, no more than a scatter of fine drops. Samuel opened the umbrella and held it high enough that Jean had to duck under. The playground had been cleared of children and marked instead by a crooked line of adults leading to the side entrance. A constable stood beside the gate with his hands clasped behind his back. Near the wall, an older Catholic man with silver hair was helping his wife fold a pram. Samuel slowed. Jean saw his face change only because she knew it so well; his jaw settled and his fingers tightened on the umbrella handle. The other man looked up and became equally still. "Sam," he said. Samuel shifted the umbrella into his left hand. "Mickey." Jean had heard the name once, years earlier, attached to a story that had ended before she could ask a question. Mickey Quinn had lived two streets over when Samuel was younger. Their families had shared tools, coal and children until a bad year had pushed one household away and left the other pretending they had never been close. None of that was spoken at the school gate. Mickey stepped forward and held out his hand. Samuel looked at it, then shook it. They did not clap shoulders or apologize or invoke anything grander than themselves. Mickey said, "You're keeping well." Samuel replied, "As well as can be expected." Mickey looked at Jean. "This your wee granddaughter?" Samuel said, "She's not so wee now." Jean gave her name. Mickey's wife joined them with the folded pram, and for a minute the four of them stood beneath two umbrellas while people shuffled around them. Mickey said he was living off the Falls now and had a son driving buses. Samuel said Jean had started work in a solicitor's office and was forever correcting his handwriting. Jean protested that he had asked her to. Samuel ignored her. When the line moved, Mickey and his wife went ahead. Samuel waited until there was a deliberate gap before following, but the stiffness had gone from his hand.

Jean remained outside the room itself, sitting on a wooden bench beneath a display of children's paintings. A volunteer official had moved the pictures high enough to make room for notices, but bright suns and houses still peered over the paper. Samuel disappeared through one door and emerged several minutes later from another, spectacles in his breast pocket and his face no different from when he had entered. Jean stood. "That it?" she asked. Samuel buttoned his jacket. "That was it." "You won't tell me." "No." "I haven't asked." "You were preparing to." He passed her the umbrella. "Hold that." She took it before realizing he had surrendered something without an argument. Outside, the rain thickened and he slipped his hand through her arm as naturally as though he had been doing it all morning. They walked to a cafe three streets away where Samuel ordered tea for both and a toasted soda farl for himself, then added one for Jean after she said she wasn't hungry. The cafe was fuller than usual. Wet coats steamed near the door. At one table two women were comparing polling cards; at another, a man insisted he had queued behind the same fellow who had borrowed a ladder from him and never returned it. Samuel buttered the farl with exact strokes. Jean watched him for a while before saying, "Mickey Quinn seemed nice." Samuel kept his eyes on the plate. "He always was." "You never said." He put the knife down. Across the room somebody laughed too loudly and cups rattled on a tray. Samuel looked toward the rain on the window, then back at Jean. "There's a great deal I never said." She waited. He picked up his tea. "Eat that before it gets cold." Jean did. There was no need to press him. When they left, the rain had settled into a steady Belfast drizzle, and Samuel took the umbrella back but kept his other hand looped through her arm.

By eight, Maureen Devlin had been awake for twenty-seven hours, though the night shift had become so familiar that time no longer felt like a straight line when she left the hospital laundry. It sat in her shoulders, in the place where the apron string had rubbed at her waist, in the powdery dryness of her hands. Steam had dampened the front of her hair and then dried it again. She washed at a basin before clocking out, rubbed cold water over her face and changed into a brown skirt and blouse in the staff room while two younger women argued over whether they would vote before sleeping or after. Maureen did not join in. She pinned her hair, buttoned her cardigan and checked that her polling card was still in the inner pocket of her handbag. The card had been there for days. On the bus home, she sat upstairs near the front because she could bear the smell of wet wool better there. Belfast moved beneath her in pieces: shutters being raised, delivery vans at kerbs, school gates open without children, posters pasted to walls and half peeled by rain. At one stop an elderly man climbed aboard in his best suit and sat two seats ahead with his hat on his knees. He took the polling card from his pocket, read it, put it back, then checked it again before the bus had travelled another hundred yards. Maureen watched the back of his hat until he got off.

Her polling station was not on the direct route home. She changed buses and walked the final stretch, heels clicking against damp pavement. People came out of the school in twos and threes, fastening coats or lighting cigarettes. Nobody looked refreshed by civic duty. They looked like people who had been standing in a school corridor at an hour when most of them preferred tea. Maureen joined the queue. Ahead of her, a mother kept one hand around a small boy's wrist while he tried to lean far enough sideways to see inside the room. Behind her, two men in factory clothes talked about a machine that had broken on Tuesday. Maureen shifted her handbag from one shoulder to the other. Her husband had hated queues. He had possessed a talent for finding the slowest one in any shop and then behaving as if it were a conspiracy arranged by management. Six years had not changed the fact that she could hear exactly what he would have said about the line curling past a display of children's handwriting. The boy ahead of her stepped backward onto Maureen's shoe. His mother turned at once. "I'm sorry, love." Maureen said, "No harm done." The boy stared at her and then at the big industrial burn scar along the inside of her wrist, pale against reddened skin. She tucked the hand under her bag strap.

At the desk she gave her name and address. The official found her line, ruled it and passed her the ballot. Maureen took the pencil into the little booth. For several seconds the paper looked strangely small. Campaign leaflets had been pushed through her door for weeks; men had spoken from lorries; neighbours had called across garden walls; priests, politicians, trade union men and women in shops had all found ways to mention the thing. Here it came down to a box and a pencil attached by string. Maureen marked it, checked the mark, folded the paper and carried it back. The official beside the ballot box watched with the patient expression of someone who had already watched hundreds of hands perform the same action. Maureen pushed the folded paper through the slot. Her fingers rested there for a moment longer than they needed to. She turned her head slightly, enough to make room for a sentence. Nothing followed. There was only the scrape of a chair, the little boy asking his mother when they could go, and rain ticking faintly against a high window. Maureen moved away from the box.

She did not go directly home. At the corner, she bought milk, bread and half a pound of sausages from a grocer whose radio was turned low beneath the counter. The grocer asked whether she had just finished work. She said yes. He said she looked done in. She said she was. His wife came from the back carrying a crate of tinned tomatoes and asked if Maureen had voted. Maureen lifted her handbag slightly. "On the way." That was all. At home the youngest, Peter, was still asleep, a long fourteen-year-old shape under the blankets with one foot hanging out. Her eldest daughter had left for work and written a note on the kitchen table saying there was tea in the pot and that she had fed the cat. Maureen took off her shoes, set the milk in the fridge and put the sausages away. The house was quiet enough that she could hear the clock above the stove. She filled the kettle anyway, though there was tea already made. From the mantel she took a small framed photograph. Brendan stood in it outside a seaside boarding house, hair blown sideways, coat open, one hand lifted because he had been caught halfway through telling her to stop taking photographs and come inside out of the wind. She placed the frame beside the sugar bowl.

The kettle came to the boil. Maureen poured water into the pot and sat with both hands around the cup. She did not speak to the photograph. She had never acquired the habit and saw no reason to begin now. After several minutes, footsteps sounded overhead and a floorboard creaked. Peter came down in his school jumper despite there being no school for him that day, hair crushed flat on one side. He stopped at the kitchen door when he saw the photograph. "You went already?" he asked. Maureen nodded. Peter opened the bread bin. "Was there a queue?" "A bit of one." He cut two thick slices and put them under the grill. "Da would've gone at six in the morning if they'd let him." Maureen looked into her tea. Peter moved quickly to the grill before the bread caught. "He'd have made us all get up too," he added. "He'd have had a speech ready for the breakfast table." Maureen said, "Three speeches." Peter smiled with his back to her. The toast popped dark at the edges. He scraped it with a knife, covered the marks in butter and put one slice on her plate without asking. Maureen broke off a corner. Peter sat opposite, chewing. The photograph remained beside the sugar bowl, its glass catching the pale kitchen light.

In Derry, Colm Gallagher had polished his grandmother's shoes before she came downstairs and had polished them so fiercely that Brigid took one look and told him he had removed half the leather. He stood in the hall holding both shoes by their heels, affronted on behalf of the polish. "They're shining." "They could signal ships," Brigid said. She lowered herself onto the chair by the coat stand and extended one stockinged foot. Colm knelt to help, though she had not asked him. He was twelve, thin as wire and committed to referendum day with the solemn intensity other boys reserved for cup finals. His own inability to vote had become the great scandal of the household. For a week he had asked every adult whether there was any provision for a responsible twelve-year-old to receive a ballot. His mother had eventually threatened to send him to the polling station with a note saying he was dangerous to democracy. Brigid had taken his side only enough to encourage him. Now she let him tie the laces while she pinned a small hat over her white hair. "Card?" Colm asked. "In the bag." "Spectacles?" "On my face." "House key?" "If you ask me whether I've my teeth I'll go without you." Colm closed his mouth. Brigid took her stick and rose. He held the front door open with grave ceremony. She paused beside him. "You'll have the whole street thinking I'm the President." "You might as well be today." "God preserve us from that." She tapped his ankle with the stick and went out.

The walk to the school usually took Brigid fifteen minutes. That morning it took nearly thirty because people stopped her. Mrs. O'Doherty leaned over a wall to ask if she was voting early. A milkman called, "Morning, Mrs. Gallagher," and Brigid called back that he had forgotten her extra pint. Two children from Colm's class raced past on bicycles and shouted his name. He refused to respond because they were treating the day as a holiday. At the first steep stretch, Brigid let him offer an elbow. He adjusted his pace to hers, though every part of him seemed to want to hurry. Posters had been pasted on opposite sides of a telegraph pole, one above the other. Colm looked from one to the other as they passed. "Do you reckon people've changed their minds today?" he asked. Brigid concentrated on the pavement. "Some will." "Have you?" "Mind the crack there." "You didn't answer." "I did. I told you to mind the crack." They reached the school gate beneath a patch of sudden blue sky. The playground where Colm usually kicked a ball at lunchtime had been turned into an adult place. Cars stopped and started near the kerb. Men who never came near the school unless summoned by a teacher were walking through its doors voluntarily. Colm stared at them with deep suspicion.

Inside, Brigid was directed toward the hall. Colm followed until an official lifted a hand and told him gently that he would have to wait outside the voting area. "I'm with her," Colm said. Brigid looked back. "He's my bodyguard." The official smiled. "He can guard the corridor." Colm accepted this as a formal appointment. There was a wooden chair beneath the coat pegs and he sat on it, knees together, hands clasped. Within five minutes an elderly woman asked him whether she had left her umbrella there. Colm inspected the four umbrellas leaning against the wall and identified hers by the strip of red wool tied to the handle. Ten minutes later a man put down a rolled newspaper and forgot it. Colm chased him as far as the outer door. When he returned, another voter asked if the ladies' lavatory was still down the same corridor. Colm pointed with authority. Brigid emerged to find him standing beside six umbrellas, two walking sticks and a shopping bag somebody had entrusted to him while going inside. "What's all this?" she asked. Colm lowered his voice. "I'm minding things." Brigid looked at the official, who shrugged. "He's useful." Brigid handed Colm her own umbrella. "Then mind that too." She sat on the bench to rest while he arranged the handles so they would not fall.

The morning warmed. More people arrived. Because Brigid wanted to speak to a cousin working one of the tables, they remained longer than planned, and Colm's little empire expanded. He learned that Mr. Hegarty's walking stick had a brass fox on the handle, Mrs. Lynn's umbrella smelled of lavender and one gentleman had somehow brought two hats but was wearing neither. Brigid talked with women near the entrance while Colm opened the door for anyone who had trouble with it. A policeman outside asked his name. Colm gave it. The policeman said, "You on duty, are you?" Colm, unable to tell whether he was being teased, said, "Sort of." "Very good. Keep the place standing." Colm nodded. Brigid had to turn away so he would not see her smile. When they finally left, the corridor seemed less orderly without him. At the gate Colm counted his grandmother's things aloud. "Bag, card - no, you don't need that now - umbrella, stick." Brigid rested a hand on his shoulder. "And grandson." Colm looked up. "You had me already." "I know. I was checking." They started downhill toward home. Halfway there she stopped outside a sweet shop and gave him a coin. "For services rendered." Colm bought a paper twist of boiled sweets and offered her the first. Brigid chose lemon. He chose raspberry. Neither of them asked the other how the vote had been marked.

The chemist in Newry opened at nine, but Hugh Wallace raised the blind at half past eight because he had been awake since six and could find no sensible reason to stand in the flat above listening to footsteps in the street. He wore his white coat before there was a customer to justify it. Across the pavement, Michael Donnelly was already lifting crates outside his grocery, setting potatoes and onions beneath the awning. For eighteen years the two shops had faced each other so closely that Hugh could identify Michael's regulars by the backs of their coats and Michael knew which of Hugh's customers would cross the road afterward for bread. That spring the distance between the doors had seemed wider. It had begun with other people. A customer repeated something supposedly said in the chemist. Another carried a reply back. Men who had never before cared where Michael bought his aspirin suddenly cared how Hugh meant to vote. A woman had asked Hugh whether he was "still friendly" with the Donnellys, as though friendship were a tin on a shelf that might be found past its date. Neither man had confronted the other. Their conversations had thinned instead. Morning had become a nod. Deliveries were accepted with a thank you. The old habit of standing in one doorway after closing had disappeared so completely that it seemed impolite to mention it.

At nine fifteen Michael crossed with a paper bag. Hugh was measuring cough mixture for an old customer and did not look up until the bell rang. Michael placed the bag on the counter. "Baps," he said. "Mary sent too many over." Hugh capped the bottle. "Tell her thanks." Michael nodded. Hugh's customer, Mrs. McConville, looked from one man to the other with the frank interest of someone who had been waiting weeks for an encounter worth reporting. Michael did not oblige her. He left. Hugh finished the prescription and put the paper bag under the counter. At ten, Mary Donnelly's teenage daughter came across for plasters because she had cut her thumb slicing ham. Hugh cleaned the cut, wrapped it and told her she would survive. She laughed. At eleven, Hugh's sister telephoned and asked whether he had voted. He said not yet. She asked whether he was worried about leaving the shop. Hugh looked across the street through the glass. Michael was serving a woman at the till. "No," he said, though he had not decided why.

The opportunity came shortly after noon. There was a lull in both shops and sunlight had pushed through the cloud, catching dust on the chemist window. Hugh took off his white coat, folded it over the chair and reached beneath the till for a small brass key attached to a wooden label. He crossed the road. Michael was stacking tins of beans when the bell rang. He turned, saw Hugh and straightened. Hugh placed the key on the counter. "Would you keep an eye for twenty minutes?" Michael looked at the key. For years it had passed between them whenever one needed the bank, the doctor, a funeral or a child collected from school. Michael's shop had a matching key in Hugh's drawer. He picked it up. "Aye." Hugh adjusted his cuff. "If anyone comes for a prescription, tell them I'll be back." "I know how it works." The words came out sharper than either expected. Hugh's face closed. Michael rubbed his thumb over the key's wooden tag. "Go on," he said, quieter. "I'll mind it." Hugh nodded and left.

Michael stood in the chemist doorway while Hugh walked toward the polling station. He did not watch all the way. A customer came into the grocery and Michael returned to weigh bacon. For the next twenty-five minutes he moved between the two premises whenever the chemist bell rang. He sold toothpaste to a young mother, told a man seeking heart tablets that Mr. Wallace would be back shortly and prevented a boy from buying a bottle of cough syrup by announcing that his mother could come over herself. When Hugh returned, slightly out of breath, Michael was behind the chemist counter with his sleeves rolled up and three customers waiting. Hugh came in through the side of the queue. "Everything all right?" Michael handed him the key. "Young McBride tried to buy half the shop." Hugh glanced at the boy, who was pretending not to hear. "That sounds normal." Michael moved toward the door. Hugh said, "Thanks." Michael paused. "Aye." He crossed back to his own shop.

At four, Hugh was dispensing tablets when he saw Michael pull down half his awning and look toward the chemist. Hugh put the counting tray aside before Michael had crossed. The grocery key landed on the counter. Michael said, "My turn." Hugh picked it up. "Go on." Michael frowned faintly, perhaps because the ease of the answer had left nothing to brace against. He went. Hugh served his remaining customer, then walked across and stood behind Michael's till. Mary was in the back room slicing cheese. She looked through the curtain and said, "You've remembered where we keep the money, then." Hugh said, "Barely." She came out wiping her hands on her apron and set a mug of tea beside him. "Milk, no sugar." Hugh looked at it. "Thank you." "Don't make a ceremony of it." She went back through the curtain.

Michael was gone longer than Hugh had been. A queue at the station, Mary guessed. Hugh sold cigarettes, bread and a quarter pound of tea. When a woman asked him whether he had changed professions, he said Michael had stepped out. She opened her mouth as if another question was waiting, then apparently thought better of it. Hugh drank the tea while it was hot. Michael returned at twenty past four and stopped just inside his own door. Hugh was wrapping two apples in newspaper for an elderly customer. He finished, took the coins and waited until she had gone before leaving the till. "Busy," he said. Michael took the key from him. "So I see." Hugh started across the road. Michael called, "Hugh." He turned. Michael stood with one hand on the door. "Mary's doing stew tonight. There's enough." Hugh looked toward the back room, where Mary was loudly moving pans without appearing. He said, "What time?" "After closing." "All right." Hugh crossed to the chemist. Neither man mentioned the referendum, the rumours, the weeks of stupid distance or what either had put on a ballot. At six, when Hugh lowered his blind, Michael was waiting outside with two bottles of stout under one arm and the grocery keys in his hand.

Isaac Graham had been awake long enough to feed the hens, curse the pump and put a temporary board across a gap in the lower fence before Margaret appeared at the farmhouse door in a green wool coat and called that if he meant to vote before Christmas he had better wash his hands. He came in carrying mud on both boots and a piece of wire between his teeth. Margaret looked at him, looked at the floor, and pointed back outside. Isaac took the wire from his mouth. "I only need my card." "You need soap." "They'll not inspect my hands." "I will." He returned to the yard, scraped his boots and washed at the sink under her supervision. They had been married fifty-one years and had reached the stage at which disagreement required very little energy. Margaret could reject an argument by setting down a cup with a particular firmness. Isaac could make his position known by clearing his throat from another room. Their children, who treated every election as if it might finally separate them, had telephoned twice during the week to ask whether they were "all right." Margaret had told one daughter that they were not wrestling in the lane and hung up. Now she buttoned Isaac's clean shirt at the wrist where his fingers had stiffened and he held her coat while she put her arms through it. Neither asked the other what would be marked on the ballot.

The car started on the second attempt. Isaac sat behind the wheel of the old Austin with his hat pushed back and peered over the bonnet as if the road had personally arranged its potholes to inconvenience him. Margaret sat upright beside him, handbag on her knees. "Slow at the bend," she said. "I know the bend." "You nearly went through McVeigh's hedge last winter." "There was ice." "There'll be ice in July if it helps your case." Isaac gave her a look and changed gear. Fermanagh lay wet and green around them. Water sat in the hollows of fields and the hedges had thickened with new growth. At a crossroads a hand-painted sign pointed toward the school being used as the polling station. Somebody had tied it to a telegraph pole with string. Isaac drove past the turn. Margaret waited. He continued another twenty yards, braked, reversed carefully and took the road without comment. She looked straight ahead. "Not a word," he said. "I said nothing." "You were about to." "I was admiring the scenery." Isaac muttered at the windscreen.

The schoolyard was busier than they expected. Cars lined the verge and bicycles leaned against the railings. Isaac parked where half the left wheel rested in mud. Margaret looked down at the puddle beside her door. Before she could complain he got out, came around and opened it, placing one broad hand beneath her elbow. She accepted the help without acknowledging it as anything unusual. Inside, a young polling clerk knew them both and called them Mr. and Mrs. Graham despite having played in their kitchen as a child. Isaac said, "You've grown official." The clerk reddened. Margaret told Isaac not to torment the boy. They were sent to separate booths. Isaac bent over his paper with his spectacles low on his nose. Margaret stood in the booth beside him, close enough that he could hear the faint scratch of her pencil. They folded their papers and approached the ballot box one after the other. Isaac gestured for Margaret to go first. She said, "No, you were born first." "By six months." "Still first." He put his ballot in. Margaret followed. Outside, Isaac offered his arm across the puddle. Margaret stepped around it instead.

They had gone less than a mile home when Isaac braked abruptly. A ewe stood in the road, staring at them with the fixed innocence of an animal that had committed an offence and intended to deny it. A length of broken wire trailed from the hedge. Isaac stopped the engine. "That's Mullan's." Margaret looked toward the field. "How can you tell?" "Mark on the ear." "You can see that from here?" "I can see sheep." He got out. Margaret remained in the car until the ewe trotted away from him, then she sighed, removed her gloves and joined him. The animal had no intention of returning through the gap from which it had escaped. Isaac tried to get behind it. Margaret tried to block the lane. The ewe slipped between them, trotted ten yards and began eating grass from the verge. A van approached slowly. The driver, a young man in a brown jacket, stopped, leaned out and called, "Need a hand?" Isaac waved him down. Two passengers climbed out as well, both women who had apparently been on their way to vote. One took off her heels and left them in the van. Within minutes five adults had arranged themselves around one sheep in a pattern that made sense to none of them.

The ewe doubled back, nearly knocking Margaret into the hedge. Isaac caught her elbow. She swatted his hand away and said, "Watch the road." The barefoot woman advanced from the other side, arms spread. The young driver clapped. The second woman shook her coat like a flag. A tractor came from the opposite direction and stopped. Its driver joined without being asked. The whole lane filled with instructions. "Left, left." "Not your left, her left." "Don't shout at it." "I'm not shouting." "You're shouting now." Finally the ewe saw the broken fence, recognized freedom in reverse and sprang through the gap. Isaac followed long enough to twist the wire back into place. When he turned, Margaret was leaning against the Austin laughing so hard she had to press a hand to her ribs. The young driver was laughing too. The barefoot woman sat on the verge pulling her shoes on. Isaac looked at the mud up both trouser legs. "Glad somebody's enjoying herself." Margaret tried to answer and failed. He stood there in ruined dignity until his own mouth gave way.

The little group separated without ever asking how anyone had voted. The van continued toward the school. The tractor moved on. Isaac and Margaret returned to the car, both carrying mud on their good clothes. Margaret took a handkerchief from her bag and rubbed a brown streak from Isaac's sleeve. "Your daughter will say we fought in the lane." "We'll tell her you won." "She knows that already." Isaac started the engine. At home, the hens had escaped through the lower gap he had boarded that morning and were scratching contentedly in the vegetable patch. Margaret got out, surveyed the damage and turned toward Isaac. He looked at the hens. He looked at her. "Tea first," he said. Margaret went into the house without argument.

Patrick Haughey saw William Kerr before his father did. They had just reached the end of the queue in the Armagh schoolyard when William came through the doors, fastening his coat. Patrick's first impulse was to lift a hand. It rose perhaps an inch before he stopped it. His father, Francis, stood at his shoulder in a dark suit he wore to Mass, funerals and any occasion at which he expected to be judged from a distance. Francis followed Patrick's gaze. The three men were suddenly arranged across ten yards of wet asphalt with other voters moving around them. William had been Patrick's closest friend from the age of eight until nothing in particular between the two of them had changed and everything around them had. A fight outside a public house several years earlier, somebody's cousin injured, an accusation carried from one family to another, and Francis had made it plain that no Kerr would enter his house. Patrick and William had continued to meet when they could, though less often, in cafes, workshops, back lanes and once in the waiting room at a dentist where both had laughed so hard at the absurdity that a receptionist told them to be quiet. Patrick had never persuaded his father to soften. William had never asked him to try again.

William could have looked away. He did not. He came down the steps and stopped in front of them. "Patrick." "Will." The greeting sat between them. Francis said nothing. A woman behind the Haugheys shifted in the queue, forcing father and son slightly forward. William moved to the side so people could pass. His hair was damp from rain. He had put on weight since Patrick last saw him and his coat strained at one button. "Your ma keeping well?" Patrick asked. "Aye. Complaining, so she's grand." William glanced at Francis. "Mr. Haughey." Francis looked at him for a long second, then gave a small nod. "William." Patrick's head turned toward his father before he could stop himself. Francis was already looking toward the school door. William swallowed. "Good day to you." Francis answered, "And to you." William walked toward the gate. Patrick watched until he disappeared beyond the wall. Francis said, "Queue's moving." Patrick stepped forward.

Inside the school, Francis complained about the heat. Patrick said nothing. They stood beneath a row of children's paper flowers while a clerk checked names. Francis removed his hat and held it against his chest. In the booth he took longer than Patrick expected. When he came out, he folded the ballot twice, then unfolded it because an official quietly told him it needed only the proper fold. He refolded it, placed it in the box and walked toward the exit. Patrick voted and followed. Outside, Francis put on his hat. They went home by the same road they had taken in, passing the public house where the old trouble had begun. Francis did not mention William. Patrick did not risk forcing the matter into words. At the house, Francis changed from his good jacket into a work coat and went directly to the shed. Patrick stood in the kitchen while his mother poured tea. "Crowded?" she asked. "Enough." She set down three cups. "Your father saw anybody?" Patrick looked toward the yard. Through the window, Francis had opened the shed and was sorting lengths of timber. "A few people." His mother gave him a glance that said she had heard the omission but would not chase it.

The afternoon brought a broken hinge on the henhouse door, and Patrick spent an hour in the yard helping Francis replace it. They worked side by side with the ease of men who could pass tools without naming them. Francis held the door square while Patrick drove screws. When a head split, Francis grunted and handed him another. Rain came briefly, hard enough to drum on the corrugated roof, and they waited inside the shed until it passed. Francis took a cigarette from his pocket, offered the packet and seemed surprised when Patrick accepted. They smoked in the doorway. Across the fields, the road shone black with rain. Francis said, "Kerr's mother still at the old place?" Patrick looked at him. "Aye." Francis nodded once. "She was decent to your mother when you were small." Patrick drew on the cigarette. "She was." Francis studied the wet yard. "That row was a bad business." Patrick did not answer. Francis tapped ash onto the floor. "Bad business makes fools of men after it's over as well." He dropped the cigarette, crushed it beneath his boot and stepped out into the rain-washed light. "Bring that hinge plate." Patrick picked it up and followed.

When the henhouse door finally swung true, Francis opened and closed it three times. "That'll do." He carried the tools back toward the shed. Patrick remained by the coop. At the road, a bicycle bell rang. William came into view, pedalling slowly past on his way home. He saw Patrick and lifted a hand. Patrick raised his. Francis, halfway to the shed, turned at the sound. William's hand lowered uncertainly. Francis stood with a hammer in one fist. Then he raised the other hand, not high, just enough. William nearly missed a pedal. He recovered and kept riding. Francis went into the shed. Patrick bent to gather the discarded screws from the mud, taking longer than necessary because his hands had become clumsy.

Sergeant Donal Sweeney had been told to expect queues, tempers, traffic and the possibility of somebody deciding that a polling station was the ideal place to settle an argument left over from Easter. By ten in the morning his principal duty had been moving a bicycle away from an emergency door. The school outside Letterkenny stood under a broad grey sky. Rain came in brief sheets and left the yard shining. Donal wore his cap, greatcoat and the expression of a man prepared to be useful if the public would only provide him with something worth doing. They refused. People arrived, presented cards, voted and left. An old farmer parked so badly that one wheel rested on the grass, but corrected it when asked. Two brothers exchanged words beside a van and then discovered they were arguing about which of them had left the handbrake off. A young woman dropped a glove. Donal picked it up. By eleven, he had walked the length of the railings sixteen times.

A boy of about ten appeared on a bicycle and stopped outside the gate. He stared into the yard. Donal stared back. The boy pretended to inspect his front tyre. Five minutes later another boy arrived. They whispered. Donal could hear nothing except the word "guards" and his own surname. The first boy cycled away, returned twenty minutes later with a third and parked across the road. Donal finally called, "If you're waiting for a riot, you'll miss your dinner." The boys scattered, laughing. A woman in a brown headscarf came through the gate carrying a paper cup. "Sergeant." Donal recognized Mrs. Gallagher from the bakery. She held the cup out. "Tea." "I'm grand, thanks." "Take it before my hand comes off." He accepted. "Much obliged." She handed him a small parcel wrapped in greaseproof paper. "Sandwiches." Donal started to protest. "My daughter made too many." "Everybody's making too much food today." "Then you won't starve." She went inside to vote.

By noon Donal had acquired another cup of tea, a currant bun and an umbrella that belonged to a retired schoolmaster named Mr. Sheridan. The umbrella came into his possession because Mr. Sheridan insisted he hold it while the old man searched three pockets for his card. After voting, Mr. Sheridan left through the side gate and forgot it entirely. Donal spotted him halfway down the road and called, but the old man waved cheerfully and kept walking, apparently believing Donal was saluting him. The umbrella was enormous, black and badly mended. Donal leaned it against the wall beside him. A young constable sent from town arrived at one o'clock to relieve him for lunch. "Anything?" the constable asked. Donal considered. "Bicycle obstruction. Glove recovered. Suspicious bun." The constable waited, unsure whether the sergeant was joking. Donal handed him the umbrella. "If Sheridan comes back, that's his." He ate his sandwiches sitting in the Garda car, watching voters pass through the windscreen.

The afternoon remained stubbornly peaceful. A woman arrived with four children and spent ten minutes arranging them on a bench outside before going in. The youngest began crying as soon as she disappeared. Donal crouched near him and pointed out a tractor across the road until the crying stopped. A man with a limp needed help up the steps. Donal gave an arm. Two women who had apparently been arguing all the way from home continued in lowered voices near the gate until one said, "I'm not discussing it with you anymore," and the other replied, "Good," after which they entered together. The boys on bicycles returned. This time one had a notebook and announced that they were counting voters. Donal asked whether they had permission. They had not considered this. He told them to stay outside the gate and not bother anyone. For the next hour they sat on the wall making marks on a page whenever somebody passed. Their count became confused when a voter left and re-entered to retrieve a handbag. They debated whether she counted once or twice. Donal refused to adjudicate.

Toward evening the cloud lifted. The wet road caught a pale strip of sun and the school windows brightened. Donal stood near the gate with Mr. Sheridan's umbrella still beside him. The old man finally reappeared, not for the umbrella but because his daughter had sent him back for it after noticing he had arrived home empty-handed. "Knew I'd put it somewhere safe," he said. Donal gave it over. Mrs. Gallagher came out of the bakery across the road and shouted that there was fresh tea if he wanted it. The boys packed away their notebook and cycled home for supper. A car pulled up and an elderly couple got out slowly, the husband coming around to help his wife. Donal opened the gate wider. Nothing had happened all day. Nothing continued to happen. He rested his hands behind his back and watched the couple cross the yard without hurry.

Nora Gallagher opened the dress shop at ten because there had been no reason to open at nine. Half the town seemed to be voting before work or after it, and the first hour brought only Mrs. Coyle, who needed black thread and stayed twenty minutes discussing everybody else's intentions. Nora stood behind the counter and let the words pass over her while she folded a length of blue cotton. The radio sat beneath the counter with the volume low. Every so often a voice mentioned turnout, queues or weather elsewhere on the island. Nora kept the dial where it was and did not turn it up. At half past eleven two sisters came in to collect alterations. One tried on a green dress and complained that the waist was too loose. Nora pinned it while the woman stood on a little platform before the mirror. "Did you go yet?" the sister asked. Nora held a pin between her lips. "This morning." "Busy?" Nora shook her head. "Steady." The woman on the platform lifted her arms. "Take another half inch there." Nora adjusted the fabric.

The bell over the door rang shortly after two. Nora was in the back room steaming a hem. She called, "I'll be with you," switched off the iron and came through carrying the garment over one arm. Her husband stood just inside the door. The word still arrived first, though they had lived apart for nearly eight months and solicitors had begun doing the talking that neither of them had managed well. Brendan Leary wore his work coat and held an envelope. Rain had darkened his shoulders. He looked around the shop as though the stock might have changed enough to require study. Nora set the dress on the counter. "Hello." "Hello." He held out the envelope. "This came to the house." Nora recognized the handwriting of an aunt in Galway. "Thanks." Brendan nodded. The bell behind him moved faintly in the draught. Nora put the letter under the till. "Tea?" she asked. Brendan's eyes lifted to hers. "If you're making it." She went into the back without waiting for him to refuse.

There were two chairs beside the little stove, one normally covered in boxes. Nora moved them to the floor. Brendan sat. She poured tea into cups with different patterns because no two cups in the shop matched. He accepted his and rubbed a thumb along the chipped rim. Through the curtain they could see the front door. The radio murmured beneath the counter. For a while they spoke about practical things. A bill had arrived at the house in both names. There were books of Nora's still in the spare room. Brendan had found a pair of her shoes behind a wardrobe. She said he could bring them to the solicitor's office rather than come to the shop. He said he had not wanted to hand a pair of women's shoes to a solicitor. Nora nearly smiled but did not. He drank his tea. "You voted?" he asked. "This morning." "Right." "You?" "On the way here." She waited. He did not tell her how. She did not ask.

A car passed outside with a loudspeaker mounted on top, words blurred by rain and glass. Brendan looked toward the front. "We used to talk about driving north," he said. Nora set down her cup. He kept looking at the curtain. "Do you remember that?" "I remember." "You wanted Donegal first, then Derry." "You said Belfast first." "I did." The radio voice changed to music. Brendan rubbed his hands together, rough knuckles catching the light. Nora stood and moved the kettle off the heat though it had not begun to boil again. "There's no point making lists now," she said. Brendan nodded. "No." He finished the tea and put the cup carefully on the saucer. "I'm sorry the letter came to me." "It's only an address." "Aye." He rose. Nora walked him to the front of the shop. At the door he paused with his hand on the latch. "I hope today gives you something good." Nora looked at the rain beyond his shoulder. "You too." He opened the door. The bell rang sharply. He crossed the street without looking back.

A customer came in ten minutes later needing a dress for a wedding. Nora took measurements, brought out three lengths of fabric and discussed sleeves. The radio remained low. At closing time she locked the front door, turned the sign and began putting away the day's pins. Brendan's empty cup was still in the back room. She washed it with the others, dried it and placed it upside down on the shelf. The envelope from Galway remained beneath the till. She put it into her handbag before switching off the lights. Outside, the rain had stopped. People were moving toward home, toward pubs, toward friends' houses where radios and televisions were already being turned up. Nora pulled the shop door closed and tested the lock twice before walking away.

The van belonged to the university debating society only in the sense that the debating society had borrowed it from a lecturer who had borrowed it from his brother. It smelled of damp coats, petrol and old oranges. Maire O'Flaherty sat behind the wheel in Galway with both hands at ten and two, jaw set as Thomas Greene unfolded a road map across his knees. Declan Walsh and Fionnuala Burke occupied the back seat with three thermos flasks, a cardboard box of sandwiches and a list of names written in different inks. Their job was simple enough: collect older voters who had asked for transport, bring them to their polling stations and take them home. The simplicity lasted until the first address. Thomas read number sixteen aloud. Maire stopped outside number sixty. Declan leaned between the seats. "Other end." Fionnuala said, "We passed sixteen five minutes ago." Maire stared through the windscreen. "Nobody said anything." Thomas folded the map. "I was navigating." "Badly." "I was navigating in good faith." Fionnuala reached forward, took the list from him and said, "Turn around before Mrs. Keane dies of old age waiting for us." Maire put the van into gear.

Mrs. Keane was eighty-two, wore a fox-fur collar despite the mild weather and carried a handbag large enough to contain a week's shopping. She sat in the front because she became carsick in the back. Thomas moved beside Declan. Mrs. Keane gave Maire directions in direct contradiction to the map and proved correct every time. At the school she refused assistance getting out, then accepted Fionnuala's arm on the steps without comment. The students waited outside. A little girl in a yellow coat was drawing circles in a puddle with the toe of her shoe. Thomas opened the sandwich box. "It's ten in the morning." Fionnuala slapped the lid shut. "They're for lunch." "I missed breakfast." "That sounds like a private tragedy." Maire turned from the school doors. "Don't start." Declan, who had been silent, said, "I changed my mind again." Three heads turned. "About the sandwiches?" Thomas asked. "No." Declan jerked his chin toward the polling station. Maire leaned against the van. "Again?" "Last night." Fionnuala said, "That's four times." "Three." "You changed twice in March." Declan counted on his fingers, frowned and stopped. Mrs. Keane emerged before the argument could develop. She handed Fionnuala her handbag and said, "Next one." Fionnuala took it automatically.

By noon they had carried a folded wheelchair, two baskets of groceries, one walking frame and a crate of eggs that had nothing to do with voting but belonged to Mr. Conneely, who refused to leave them unattended at home. The van's sliding door stuck twice. Thomas fixed it with a kick until Maire threatened him with death if the lecturer's brother saw the dent. They ate sandwiches beside a stone wall outside the city while waiting for an elderly couple whose polling station was in a village school. The wind pushed wrappers against their shoes. Declan had cheese, Fionnuala egg, Thomas ham and Maire whatever remained because she had packed the box at six that morning and could no longer remember. Cars moved along the road behind them. A woman on a bicycle slowed to ask whether they were the student drivers. Maire said yes. The woman gave them another address and asked if they could collect her father after two. Fionnuala added the name to the list. Thomas said, "We're becoming a bus service." Maire swallowed a mouthful. "Then stop eating the passengers' lunch." Thomas looked offended. "No passenger has claimed this sandwich."

Their arguments came and went without leaving marks. Maire wanted the van used until the polls closed. Thomas thought they should return it before dark. Fionnuala refused to tell any of them how she intended to vote and became more amused each time they tried to deduce it from her choice of newspaper, her parents' county or the badge she had removed from her coat weeks earlier. Declan announced another change of mind at three and was shouted down before he could explain. Their passengers listened with varying levels of interest. Mr. Lavelle, a retired teacher, told them they were all too young to know anything. Mrs. Duffy told him he had been saying that about young people since 1929. A woman in her seventies asked Thomas whether he was married and, when he said no, turned immediately to Maire and asked why not. Maire nearly drove into a ditch. Thomas laughed until she threatened to leave him there.

The puncture happened in a narrow lane west of the city with one passenger aboard, seventy-six-year-old Nora Fahy, who regarded the sudden lean of the van as a personal inconvenience. Maire stopped. Thomas and Declan climbed out to inspect the tyre. Fionnuala remained with Mrs. Fahy. Rain began as soon as the jack came out. Thomas removed his jacket and knelt in mud. Declan held the wheel brace. Maire stood over both of them reading instructions from a booklet found in the glove compartment. "We know how to change a wheel," Thomas said. "Then why are you doing it wrong?" "I'm not." "It says loosen before lifting." "I did." Declan wiped rain from his face. "You didn't." Thomas looked at him. "Whose side are you on?" "The wheel's." From inside the van Mrs. Fahy called, "Will I vote today or tomorrow?" Fionnuala opened the door. "Today, Mrs. Fahy." "Then tell them to stop talking." Thomas and Declan worked faster.

They reached the polling station with twenty minutes lost and Mrs. Fahy dry beneath Fionnuala's coat. When she returned, she carried four boiled sweets taken from a dish on a clerk's table and distributed them among the students as if paying a fare. By evening the van was filthy. Maire's hair had escaped its pins. Thomas had mud to one knee. Declan had finally stopped announcing his internal changes to the constitutional order. Fionnuala's list was covered in ticks, arrows and tea stains. They made the last collection just before the light began to fade: a widower in his late eighties who lived alone at the end of a lane and came out wearing a tie under a heavy coat. He apologised for keeping them waiting though they had arrived early. On the drive back, he asked their names one by one and thanked each of them before getting out. Afterward nobody spoke for a little while. The van rattled over the road. Then Thomas reached for the sandwich box and found it empty. "Who ate the last one?" he asked. Fionnuala looked out the window. Declan studied the ceiling. Maire drove. Thomas turned around. "There were two." Fionnuala said, "History will never know." Maire laughed first, then Declan, and even Thomas gave up after a few seconds. They headed toward the next address with the windows fogging from four damp coats.

Frank Dolan found Patricia at the kitchen table tying the laces of her mother's brown shoes. She had grown into them over the winter. He noticed because he had been avoiding noticing for months. The shoes had stood at the back of the wardrobe after Kathleen died, toes turned slightly inward where she had left them. Patricia must have taken them out that morning. She wore a dark skirt, blouse and the cardigan her aunt had knitted. At sixteen she was old enough to remain home while he voted and too young to vote herself, an arrangement she had described as "stupid" at breakfast. Frank put his polling card into his wallet. "Those fit?" he asked. Patricia stood and pressed one foot against the floor. "Mostly." "Mostly isn't fit." "They're grand." He looked at the heel. "Your mother used to put paper in the toes when shoes were too big." Patricia bent and retied one lace. "They're not too big." Frank took his coat from the hook. "You coming?" She nodded.

Sligo was damp beneath a low ceiling of cloud. Father and daughter walked because the polling station was less than a mile away. Patricia kept half a step ahead. She had her mother's long stride and the same habit of tucking one hand into a sleeve when cold. Frank kept his eyes on the road. At the school gates groups had formed and reformed, neighbours stopping each other for short conversations before going in. Patricia waited outside while Frank joined the queue. Through the open doors she could see him remove his cap, answer a clerk and disappear behind a screen. She rubbed one brown shoe against the back of the other. A girl from her class approached with her parents and asked whether Patricia was going to the dance on Saturday. Patricia said she had not decided. The girl's mother greeted Frank as he came out. He nodded to them and handed Patricia his cap while he buttoned his coat. "Done," he said. She gave the cap back. They walked away.

They went to a cafe because Patricia asked for tea and Frank did not want to return to the house yet. The place had a radio playing behind the counter, but the owner kept turning it down whenever customers began speaking over it. Frank ordered tea and a scone. Patricia ordered tea and nothing, then ate half his scone. They sat near the window. Across the street a man was pasting a fresh notice over a torn poster. Patricia watched him smooth the paper with both palms. "Mam wanted to go north this summer," she said. Frank picked up his cup. "Aye." "She said we'd do Derry and Belfast." Frank took a drink. "She said a lot of things." Patricia looked at the table. "She wrote the places down." He stopped. "Where?" "In the red notebook." Frank knew the notebook. It sat in the drawer beside the bed under old receipts and a broken fountain pen. He had not opened it since the funeral. Patricia tore the remaining scone in half. "I found it looking for stamps." Frank set his cup down. "You shouldn't be in that drawer." "I needed stamps." "There's stamps in the dresser." "There weren't." The cafe owner turned the radio lower again.

Frank looked out at the street. Patricia put the scone down. "We don't have to go." He rubbed a thumb against a chip in the saucer. "Your aunt could take you." "I didn't ask Aunt Eileen." "She likes Belfast." "I asked you." Frank's hand stilled. Patricia lifted her tea but did not drink it. A bus passed, briefly filling the window with red and cream. When it cleared, the man across the road had finished with the poster and was walking away. Frank said, "Your mother wanted to see the walls in Derry." Patricia nodded. "And some bookshop in Belfast." "She wanted every bookshop in Belfast." "She marked one." Frank gave a short breath that was almost a laugh and stopped before it became one. He reached for the scone and found only crumbs. Patricia pushed the half she had saved toward him. "You can have that." He ate it.

On the way home they passed a travel agent with photographs of coaches and seaside hotels in the window. Frank stopped. Patricia took two more steps before noticing. He read the handwritten notices taped inside. One advertised summer excursions north. Another showed a coach route through Donegal. The office was closed for lunch. Frank stood there long enough that Patricia came back beside him. "We can ask tomorrow," he said. Patricia looked at the glass. "All right." He started walking. She caught up. At the corner she took his arm, not because he needed steadying but because her mother's shoes had begun rubbing at the heels and she was limping. Frank slowed without looking down. When they reached the house he made her take them off. She protested until he brought newspaper from the scullery, tore two strips and folded them into the toes exactly as Kathleen used to do.

On Inis Mor, Padraig O Conghaile had expected referendum day to sound different. He had expected more bells, more radios, perhaps boats arriving with people shouting news from the mainland. Instead the morning began with gulls, wind and his grandfather asking whether he had checked the lobster pots. Padraig stood in the doorway with one boot on. "We're going to vote." His grandfather, Seamus, sat at the table eating porridge. "I am." "I'm coming." "After the pots." Padraig looked toward the clock. "You said we'd go early." Seamus spooned porridge without hurry. "Early lasts longer here." Padraig pulled on the second boot and went out muttering. The sea beyond the stone walls was grey-green and restless. By the time he returned, cheeks stung red by wind, Seamus had changed into a clean shirt and dark jacket and was waiting with his cap in hand. "You took your time," he said. Padraig stared at him. Seamus opened the door.

They walked the road between walls of pale stone, Seamus using a blackthorn stick polished smooth by years of his palm. People passed in both directions. Some greeted them in Irish, others in English, and most stopped long enough to ask after somebody. Padraig kept trying to hurry the conversations by shifting from foot to foot. Seamus ignored him. At one cottage an old woman came to the gate and handed Seamus a parcel wrapped in newspaper for his sister. Padraig said, "We're not going there." "We are now." "The station's the other way." Seamus tucked the parcel under his arm. "It'll still be there." They delivered the parcel. They stopped again when a neighbour asked Seamus to look at a broken latch. Padraig held the gate while his grandfather bent the metal back with pliers borrowed from the house. "We'll miss it," Padraig said. Seamus looked at the sunless sky. "No." "How do you know?" "Because it's not near closing." Padraig had no answer except impatience.

The polling station was in a small schoolroom where the windows rattled in the wind. Padraig waited by the door. He watched his grandfather give his name, take the paper and step behind the screen. The act seemed too small. Padraig had heard men in the shop argue for weeks, had heard radio voices sharpen and soften, had seen newspapers arrive folded around words large enough to cover half a page. Seamus came out holding a folded ballot no bigger than a letter. He placed it in the box and thanked the clerk. Outside, Padraig asked, "That's all?" Seamus put on his cap. "What did you expect?" Padraig looked back through the doorway. "More." "There's plenty more people." They walked toward home. Padraig kept glancing at the mainland beyond the water whenever the road rose enough to show it. Nothing visible had happened there either.

After dinner Seamus took nets to the shed and Padraig followed. They worked side by side, checking for frayed cord. Padraig's fingers were quick but careless. Seamus made him undo two knots and tie them again. A battery radio sat on a shelf, its signal fading whenever the wind shifted. News came in fragments. Padraig stopped working whenever a place name was mentioned. Seamus continued. "How can you just do nets?" Padraig asked. "They need doing." "But today." Seamus passed him a float. "Today they need doing." Padraig tied it. For several minutes only the scratch of rope and radio static filled the shed. Then he said, "Will it feel different if it changes?" Seamus examined a knot. "The net?" "You know what I mean." Seamus handed it back for correction. "You wake up. You eat. You work. Something can be important without making the tea taste different." Padraig frowned. "That sounds boring." "Most important things are boring while you're doing them." "Voting wasn't boring." "You didn't vote." Padraig threw a float at him. Seamus caught it against his chest and finally smiled.

In the afternoon they went down toward the harbour. A few men stood near the boats with a radio balanced on a crate. Padraig drifted closer. Seamus stayed back, speaking with a fisherman about an engine. The reports were still incomplete. Turnout figures, weather, places where lines had formed. Padraig listened as if each number might tip the sea. One of the men noticed him and said, "You'll wear a hole in the ground waiting." Padraig folded his arms. "I want to know." "So do we." The man turned up the volume and static swallowed the next sentence. Everyone groaned. Padraig looked toward his grandfather. Seamus had his back turned, hands describing some mechanical problem in the air. The island around them remained exactly itself: gulls diving, rope knocking against masts, salt on the wind. Padraig sat on the harbour wall and waited with the adults.

Sister Agnes O'Malley began the day by writing six names on the back of an old envelope. They belonged to women in the home who intended to vote and required some kind of help getting there. Two could walk if given time. One needed the home car. One refused the car on principle because she mistrusted its brakes. One, Annie Brennan, was ninety-four and remembered the referendum clearly whenever it was explained, then misplaced it among other things within minutes. Agnes found Annie in the sitting room after breakfast with a blanket over her knees and a newspaper upside down on her lap. "We're going out at eleven," Agnes said. Annie looked up. "Where?" "To vote." Annie's face sharpened. "Of course." She folded the newspaper with care and held it out. "I won't miss that." Agnes took it. Ten minutes later, when she returned with Annie's coat, Annie asked whether there was Mass.

The home car made three trips. Agnes sat in front with the driver, Mr. Casey, while the women filled the back with handbags, hats and complaints about one another. On the first journey Mrs. Molloy insisted the window remain closed. Mrs. Hayes insisted it be opened. Agnes compromised by opening it one inch. On the second journey a woman named Delia discovered halfway there that she had left her card on the mantel, and they turned back. Annie travelled on the third. She wore a plum-coloured coat and a hat with a net veil that Agnes helped pin in place. "Where are we going?" Annie asked as the car moved through Limerick. "To vote." "Ah." Annie looked out the window. "I always vote." "I know." "Never missed." "I know." Annie patted her handbag. "Have I the card?" Agnes touched the bag. "You have." At the next corner Annie asked whether they were going to the doctor.

The station was busy enough that they had to wait. Agnes found Annie a chair in the corridor. Children had made paper chains and maps for the walls. Annie studied a row of painted houses. "Is this your school?" she asked. "No." "You were clever at school." Agnes smiled. "Was I?" "Always reading." Annie had not known Agnes as a child. Agnes did not correct her. A clerk came out and said they could bring Annie through. At the desk Annie gave her name before anyone prompted her. She listened carefully while the process was explained, then turned toward Agnes. "You'll come in?" Agnes said, "I'll wait right here." Annie hesitated. "You're not voting for me." "No." Annie nodded, satisfied. "Good girl." She went behind the screen with a clerk nearby only to assist if asked. Agnes stood where Annie could see the edge of her black habit beneath the partition.

Annie took several minutes. When she emerged, she held the folded ballot between finger and thumb and walked to the box without help. Her hand trembled but the paper slid through cleanly. She watched it disappear, then looked at Agnes with bright satisfaction. "There." "There." Annie reached for her arm. They returned to the corridor and sat while Mr. Casey brought the car around. A woman waiting opposite recognized Annie from years ago and leaned across to ask after her family. Annie answered some questions correctly and others from a different decade. She said her husband would be home from work at six, though he had been dead nearly thirty years. The woman did not correct her either. At the front door Annie stopped and looked back toward the hall. "Are we voting now?" she asked. Agnes tightened her hand gently around Annie's. "We've done it." Annie blinked. "Have we?" "Yes." "Did I vote?" "You did." Annie smiled. "Good. I always vote."

Back at the home, tea waited in the dining room. Annie removed her hat and handed it to Agnes, then sat beside the window. Mrs. Molloy was telling anyone who would listen that the polling clerk had looked about twelve. Delia was insisting she had not forgotten her card, only put it somewhere inconvenient. Annie accepted a cup and two biscuits. Agnes moved between tables pouring milk. When she reached Annie again, the old woman touched her sleeve. "Are we going out today?" Agnes crouched slightly so she would not have to speak loudly. "We already went." "Where?" Agnes looked at the plum coat folded over the back of the chair, the polling card still tucked in its pocket. "To vote." Annie's mouth opened in surprise, then curved. "Did I?" "You did." Annie took a biscuit. "Good." A few minutes later she asked again. Agnes gave her the same answer each time, never shortening it, while the room filled with afternoon light and the sound of teaspoons against china.

Eileen Desmond's daughter made the mistake of saying, "If you're tired, Mam, you don't have to go," before breakfast. Eileen put down her spoon. Around the Cork kitchen three generations became quiet. Her son Michael, who had been cutting bread, stopped with the knife halfway through a loaf. Her granddaughter Roisin looked at the floor. Four-year-old Maeve continued pushing a raisin around the rim of her porridge bowl. Eileen was ninety-one and small enough now that her cardigan seemed to hang from her shoulders rather than fit them, but the look she gave her daughter belonged to a much younger woman. "I don't have to do a great many things," she said. "I don't have to wash. I don't have to eat. I don't have to tolerate you fussing." Kathleen lifted both hands. "I only meant -" "I know what you meant. Find my brown shoes." Michael resumed cutting bread with exaggerated concentration. Roisin bit the inside of her cheek. Maeve looked between the adults and said, "Great-Granny's cross." Eileen turned to her. "Great-Granny is going out." Maeve brightened. "Can I come?" Eileen said, "Yes," before anyone else could answer.

Getting Eileen down the stairs from the flat took longer than the drive. She rejected Michael's suggestion that he carry her. She rejected Kathleen's suggestion that they use the back stairs because the steps were shallower. She accepted Roisin on one side and the banister on the other, moving one foot at a time while Maeve waited below in a red coat and announced each successful step. "Seven. Eight. Nine." Eileen said, "I can count." Maeve said, "Ten." At the landing, Eileen stopped to breathe. Nobody mentioned it. Michael went ahead to bring the car closer. By the time they reached the pavement the whole operation had attracted Mrs. O'Leary from downstairs, who stood in her doorway holding a tea towel and asked where they were taking "the queen." Eileen said, "To vote." Mrs. O'Leary called after them that she was going herself after dinner. Maeve waved as though departing on a voyage.

The polling station was in a school Eileen had passed for decades. That day the gate stood open and people moved steadily through. Michael parked near the kerb and hurried around, but Eileen had already opened her door. Roisin helped her out. Maeve insisted on holding one of Eileen's hands and had to stretch upward to do it. The four of them crossed the yard at Eileen's pace. People recognized her. A man in his fifties removed his cap and said, "Mrs. Desmond, you're looking mighty." Eileen replied, "You're a liar, Paddy Buckley," and he laughed so loudly a clerk at the door turned to see. Inside, the corridor was hot. Eileen refused the chair offered to her. "I'll sit when I'm dead." Kathleen said sharply, "Mam." Eileen glanced at Maeve and amended, "I'll sit at home." Maeve accepted this.

At the desk Eileen gave her name and address without looking to her family. The clerk found her line, then looked at her with the careful courtesy older people sometimes received from strangers. "Do you need any assistance, Mrs. Desmond?" Eileen leaned one hand on her stick. "Can you hold a pencil for me?" The clerk hesitated. "If you require -" Eileen's mouth twitched. "I'm teasing you, boy." The clerk flushed. Roisin turned away, shoulders shaking. Eileen took the ballot and went behind the screen alone. Maeve tried to follow. Michael caught the back of her coat. "Not in there." "Why?" "Because it's private." Maeve looked offended. "I'm family." "Still private." She sat on the floor until Kathleen made her stand.

Eileen emerged after a few minutes and pushed the folded paper into the box. She watched until it vanished. Maeve clapped once before Roisin caught her hands. Eileen looked down. "It's not a concert." Maeve whispered, "Sorry." They began the slow journey out. At the door, a reporter with a notebook asked Eileen whether she would say a few words about having voted at ninety-one. Eileen stopped. The family stopped behind her. The reporter smiled with professional hope. "You've seen a great many changes in Ireland. What does today mean to you?" Eileen stared at him. "It means I'm hungry." The reporter's smile faltered. Michael coughed into his hand. Eileen continued toward the gate. "And it means if my son doesn't get me home soon I'll miss my dinner." Maeve tugged her hand. "Can we get cake?" Eileen said, "Now there's a sensible political question."

They did not go straight home. Eileen wanted tea in a cafe near the river, so Michael found parking and the procession began again. The cafe owner moved a chair with arms to a table by the window. Eileen lowered herself into it at last. Kathleen ordered tea, Roisin coffee, Michael tea and Maeve milk with a currant bun. Eileen asked for stew despite having said they would be home for dinner. Nobody challenged her. Around them customers spoke in low bursts about queues, relatives, wards and weather. Maeve picked the currants from her bun and lined them on the saucer. Eileen watched her. "Eat those." "I don't like them." "Then why did you ask for a currant bun?" "I like the bun." Eileen took one raisin and ate it. Maeve pushed the rest toward her. A bargain was reached without words.

Kathleen stirred her tea. "You frightened us on the stairs." Eileen spooned stew. "I walked down stairs." "You know what I mean." "I do. That's why I'm not answering." Kathleen looked toward the window. Roisin reached across and touched her mother's wrist, then withdrew. Eileen ate three more spoonfuls before saying, "You can be frightened and keep your mouth shut at the same time." Michael smiled into his cup. Kathleen glared at him. Eileen pointed the spoon. "Him too." Michael straightened. "I said nothing." "Your face did." Maeve, who had been listening, placed both hands over her own face. "Mine can't." Eileen laughed, a dry bright sound that startled even her. The table followed. It took several minutes before Kathleen could drink her tea without spilling it.

When they finally returned to the flat, Eileen accepted Michael's arm on the stairs without argument. Maeve counted again, this time backward from the landing. At the top Eileen paused, breathing hard, and Roisin opened the door. The radio was already on in the sitting room. Eileen removed her coat and settled into the chair nearest the window. Maeve climbed onto the rug at her feet with crayons. Kathleen brought a blanket. Eileen allowed it over her knees. Reports came and went in the background. Eileen asked for the volume lower because she wanted to hear Maeve explain the picture she was drawing. It was, according to Maeve, a school, a ballot box, Great-Granny, a dog that had not actually been present and a cake much larger than the building. Eileen listened to every detail.

At the docks, Seamus Leary spent the afternoon moving crates while men around him found reasons to mention the referendum without admitting they were talking politics. One said his polling station had a queue out the door. Another said his wife had gone before breakfast. A third complained that his mother had changed her mind twice before leaving the house and might change it again in the booth. Seamus worked with his collar open and his sleeves rolled, lifting, carrying and signing where he was told. When somebody asked whether he had voted, he said, "After shift." When another asked how, he said nothing at all. Around three, a man named Tom Hennessy lit a cigarette behind a stack of timber and said, "Your brother up north still?" Seamus looked at him. "Aye." "Belfast, was it?" "Aye." Tom nodded, drew smoke and studied the river. "He voting today?" "I'd assume." "Talk to him lately?" Seamus lifted the next crate. "No." Tom took the other side. They carried it together.

At the end of the shift the men washed at cold taps, changed shirts and dispersed toward buses, bicycles and pubs. Seamus went to vote. He stood in line with two dockers he knew and three women he did not. Nobody spoke much. His hands still smelled of rope and salt despite the soap. At the booth he marked his ballot, folded it and put it in the box. Outside, Tom Hennessy was waiting beneath the school awning, though he had voted that morning. "Thought you'd gone," Seamus said. "Waiting for a lift." No car was visible. Seamus buttoned his coat. Tom looked toward the road. "My brother and I didn't talk for four years once." Seamus said nothing. "Over a horse." "You never owned a horse." "Exactly." Tom smiled faintly. "That's how stupid it was." Seamus started down the steps. Tom called after him, "You always say politics did it." Seamus turned. Tom's face had lost the smile. "Politics didn't call your sister-in-law what you called her." The words landed without anger. Seamus stood still. Tom lifted a shoulder. "See you Monday." He walked the other way.

Seamus did not go to the pub. He walked home through Cork with his hands in his coat pockets and passed the telephone box at the end of his street. He took three steps beyond it, stopped and came back. Inside, the glass smelled of rain and stale smoke. He closed the folding door and took a scrap of paper from his wallet. His brother's number had been written there for years, the crease soft from being unfolded and refolded. Seamus stared at it. A woman waiting outside shifted a shopping bag from one arm to the other. He put coins in the slot and dialled. The connection took time. Static came first, then a distant ring. Seamus almost replaced the receiver on the third. On the fifth somebody answered. A woman's voice said, "Hello?" He knew it at once.

"Martha," he said. Silence crossed the line. Behind the glass the waiting woman looked away politely. Martha said, "Who's this?" He could not tell whether she truly needed to ask. "Seamus." Another silence, longer. He put one finger against the coin box. "Is Liam there?" "He is." Her voice remained flat. "Wait." The receiver moved. He heard a hand cover it, then muffled words. A chair scraped somewhere in Belfast. Liam came on. "Seamus." "Aye." "Something happened?" "No." "Mam all right?" "She's fine." "Then what?" Seamus closed his eyes. People passed outside the box. "I wanted to say something to Martha." Liam did not answer. "Put her back, would you?" The line clicked and rustled again.

Martha returned. "What is it?" Seamus looked at the rain marks on the glass. "What I said to you that night was vile." Her breath was audible. "I was drunk, and I was angry, and I've been using everything else as an excuse because it was easier than saying I behaved like a pig." Martha did not rescue him. He continued. "You didn't deserve it. Liam didn't. I knew that the next morning. I knew it every time after. I'm sorry." The woman outside the box had been joined by a man carrying newspapers. Neither looked at him. Martha said, "Nine years." "I know." "You never wrote." "No." "You sent Christmas cards to Mam and left our names off." Seamus pressed his forehead briefly to the cool glass. "I know." "And now today of all days." He swallowed. "Today made me tired of hearing myself lie about why we don't speak." There was another pause. Then Martha said, "I'll get Liam."

His brother's voice returned, rougher now. "You're still an eejit." Seamus let out a breath. "Aye." "Martha's crying." Seamus gripped the receiver. "I didn't ring to make her cry." "You've a gift." The old shape of Liam's voice was there but not the old ease. Seamus did not try to force it. He said, "I'm sorry to you too." Liam took time before answering. "Ring Sunday." Seamus blinked. "What?" "Sunday. After dinner. Not when half the country is trying to use a telephone." "Aye." "And don't expect everything fixed because you found sixpence and courage at the same time." "I don't." "Good." The line held. Seamus could hear a radio somewhere behind Liam, then Martha saying something indistinct. Liam said, "Did you vote?" Seamus gave a short laugh despite himself. "I did." "I'm not asking how." "I wasn't telling." "Sunday, then." "Sunday." The connection broke.

Seamus stood inside the box with the dead receiver against his ear until the waiting woman tapped lightly on the glass. He replaced it and stepped out. "Sorry." She went in at once. The man with newspapers moved up. Seamus crossed the street to a small shop, bought cigarettes he did not need and a bag of apples his mother had asked for that morning. At home she was listening to the radio at the kitchen table. "You're late." He set the apples down. "Queue." She looked at him over her glasses. "That must have been some queue." Seamus removed his coat. "I rang Liam." His mother froze with one hand on the teapot. He added, "I'm ringing again Sunday." She lowered her hand. Nothing was said for several seconds. Then she pushed a cup toward him and asked, "Milk?" Seamus sat. "Aye." She poured it without looking at him.

Kathleen Roche had spent the first hour of referendum day furious at every customer over twenty-one. She did not say so because Mrs. Byrne, who owned the bakery, would have sent her to knead dough in the back until she recovered her manners. Kathleen was seventeen years and six months old and had discovered only during the campaign that six months could resemble a prison sentence. Adults who had never shown the slightest interest in politics came in talking about polling cards. Men who could not remember their wives' birthdays knew exactly where they had to vote. A woman who had once asked Kathleen how many pennies were in a shilling announced that she had read every leaflet delivered to her house. Kathleen wrapped loaves, counted change and regarded them all as beneficiaries of an arbitrary system. Mrs. Byrne saw her expression after the fifth customer said, "Have you been yet, love?" and snapped, "She's seventeen, and if another person asks her she'll bite through the counter." The customer laughed. Kathleen did not.

At eleven a postman came in for two rolls and said he had voted before his round. Kathleen took a pencil stub from beneath the till and made a mark on the back of a flour invoice. Mrs. Byrne noticed. "What's that?" "One." "One what?" "One person who's voted." Mrs. Byrne stared. "Why?" Kathleen shrugged. "I want to know." "Know what?" "How many people come through here who did." Mrs. Byrne considered this and turned back to the ovens. "Don't write on anything the accountant wants." Kathleen moved to a blank sheet of wrapping paper. The next voter was a woman buying soda bread. Then a bus conductor. Then an old man who had not yet gone but said he would after lunch, so Kathleen refused to count him. "I'll come back and tell you," he said. "You'd better." He laughed and left.

By noon the marks had become columns. Kathleen did not ask how anybody had voted. The rule emerged without discussion. Mrs. Byrne enforced it more firmly than she did. When a customer began to say, "I voted for -" Mrs. Byrne cut across with, "We sell bread, not confessions." Kathleen made the mark and handed over change. A delivery driver added himself and his wife, but Kathleen struck out the second mark because the wife had not personally entered the bakery. The driver accused her of corruption. She told him the count had standards. Mrs. Byrne, carrying a tray behind them, said, "God help the civil service if they get her." By one o'clock there were fifty-three marks. Flour dust softened the pencil lines. Kathleen recopied them onto a cleaner sheet and hid it beneath the till whenever anyone looked too interested.

The bakery grew busy in the afternoon. Some people came straight from polling stations, cards still in coat pockets. Others stopped on their way. A woman with a pram leaned the handle against the counter and said she had queued forty minutes. Kathleen marked one. Two labourers came in together; only one had voted yet. Kathleen marked one and pointed at the other. "You don't count." "I feel wounded." "Go vote." "I'm working." "So am I." He bought a currant bun, ate it in three bites and returned two hours later solely to announce that he had now voted. Kathleen made the mark with ceremony. "There." "Happy?" "Moderately." He bowed and left.

A schoolgirl of about twelve came in with her mother and saw the tally. "What's that?" she asked. Kathleen explained. The girl immediately wanted to help. Her mother said they had shopping to do. The girl insisted on holding the pencil while her mother paid. Kathleen let her make one line for her mother, then one for her father, who was waiting outside and had voted that morning. "He counts," Kathleen decided, because she could see him through the window and he raised his polling card as evidence. The girl wanted to mark herself. Kathleen said, "No." "Why not?" "Same reason I can't." The girl frowned at the page. "That's stupid." Kathleen pointed at her. "Exactly." Her mother pulled her toward the door before the alliance could become organized.

As evening approached, the tally passed one hundred. Mrs. Byrne began contributing updates from people she knew had voted but Kathleen rejected any she had not personally heard. "You can't make rules halfway through," Mrs. Byrne said. "I made them at the start." "You made them in your head." "Still rules." At half six the old man from lunch returned. He did not buy anything. He simply opened the door, leaned in and said, "Done." Kathleen added a mark. He nodded, satisfied, and disappeared. Mrs. Byrne came beside her to look at the paper. "One hundred and sixty-two." "So far." "And what will you do with it?" Kathleen smoothed the flour-dusted edge. "Keep it." Mrs. Byrne looked at her, then at the queue. "Then don't lose it under the currant buns."

They closed later than usual. The final customer was a nurse who bought a loaf and said she had run to vote between shifts. Kathleen made the last line: one hundred and eighty-seven. Mrs. Byrne locked the door. The ovens had gone quiet. In the sudden stillness, Kathleen counted twice more, then folded the sheet carefully into quarters. Flour had whitened the creases and a thumbprint of jam marked one corner. Mrs. Byrne was sweeping. "You know it means nothing," she said. Kathleen tucked it into the inside pocket of her cardigan. "I know." Mrs. Byrne swept another line of flour toward the pan. "Good." Kathleen put on her coat. Outside, voices carried from open pub doors and radios could be heard through windows. She stepped into the street with the folded tally against her chest and went home to listen with everybody else.

Daniel Keane voted in Dublin just after three and walked out with no desire to go home. He stood at the school gate while people passed around him, then turned away from his own street and headed toward the river. He had been born in Belfast seventy years earlier and had lived in Dublin for more than four decades. The two cities existed in his speech together: certain vowels had flattened, others never had. Most people who knew him now knew he was from the north but not much more. His surviving family there could have been strangers. Two brothers were dead. A sister had died without speaking to him. Nieces and nephews had grown from names in occasional letters into adults whose faces he would not know. The original quarrel had concerned their father's estate, then religion, then a marriage, then who had failed to write first. It had accumulated causes until no single one could be removed without exposing another beneath it.

Daniel walked along the river with his hands behind his back. Posters shivered on railings. A newspaper seller called headlines. At a kiosk he bought a paper, folded it under his arm and did not read it. He entered a cafe and ordered tea. The waitress called him "love," though she could not have been more than nineteen, and set the pot down with a plate of biscuits. Daniel took one biscuit. At the next table, two men discussed roads north of Dundalk and whether traffic would be worse later. One said his sister lived in Belfast. Daniel looked at the tea leaves circling the bottom of his cup. When the men left, he opened the newspaper. A photograph showed a polling queue. He turned the page without reading the caption.

At home he placed the paper on the kitchen table and opened a drawer beneath the telephone. Inside lay an address book with a cracked black cover. Daniel had carried it through three houses. He found the Belfast page. Several names had lines through them. Beside one niece, Anne Keane, there was a telephone number copied from a Christmas card received four years earlier. He had never used it. He put the book beside the telephone and filled the kettle. While it heated he stood at the window overlooking a narrow back garden. The neighbour's washing moved on the line. Somebody nearby had a radio loud enough for words to float over the wall, then disappear under the kettle's whistle. Daniel made tea, sat and stared at the number.

He lifted the receiver once and set it back before dialling. He drank half the tea. The clock on the wall moved through four minutes. He picked up the receiver again. His finger entered the first number and stopped. He could not remember whether Anne would be at work. He did not know whether she had married. He did not know whether she used the name Keane. The last Christmas card had been signed Anne, Peter and the children, but he had no idea who Peter was beyond that line. Daniel put the receiver down. He opened the address book and found the card tucked between two pages. The children had drawn stars in red pencil. One had written a name with the letters backward. Daniel rubbed a finger over the waxy marks.

At five his neighbour, Mrs. Walsh, knocked to ask whether he wanted to come next door later for the results because her son had brought a larger television. Daniel said he might. She looked past him at the telephone and the open book. "You interrupting something?" "No." "I made stew." "You're feeding half the street." "Only the half I like." She went. Daniel returned to the kitchen. He wrote Anne's number on a small square of paper in larger figures than the book used. Beneath it he wrote simply BELFAST. He placed the paper beside the telephone and closed the address book. Then he changed his mind, reopened it and left it open to Anne's page.

The light faded slowly. Daniel ate bread and cheese at the table. He listened to the radio reports without turning them loud. Twice he reached toward the telephone. Once it rang and he startled so badly that tea spilled from his cup. It was Mrs. Walsh telling him the stew was ready, though her house was ten steps away. Daniel told her he would come over shortly. He cleaned the tea, changed his shirt and put on a cardigan. Before leaving he stood beside the telephone again. The paper remained there. He put one finger on it and slid it half an inch so it would not be hidden by the receiver cord. Then he went next door. The number remained waiting in the quiet kitchen.

Anne and Michael Byrne had been informed three separate times that the school being used as a polling station did not mean they were allowed to spend the day at the school. At eleven, they were across the road from it anyway. The twins were eleven, born seven minutes apart, and disagreed over whether seven minutes entitled Anne to issue orders. Michael said no. Anne said experience was experience. They had bicycles, two packets of crisps and no intention of interfering with anybody. Their mother had sent them out after they began arguing beside the radio and told them to be home for dinner. She had not specifically forbidden observation.

The school gate stood open. Adults entered through the same doorway the twins used every morning and came out a few minutes later looking disappointingly ordinary. Michael leaned against his bicycle. "They don't even get anything." Anne opened her crisps. "They get to vote." "I mean a card or something." "They've already got a card." "To prove they did it." Anne shrugged. "Maybe they stamp your hand." Michael looked at the hands of a man emerging from the gate. "They don't." They watched another five voters before deciding the best view was from the low wall beside the grocer's shop.

Their teacher, Miss Hanratty, appeared inside one of the school windows. Both twins ducked by instinct. Michael's bicycle fell over. The crash made three adults turn. Anne hissed, "Pick it up." Michael lifted the bicycle and crouched behind it. "She saw us." "She didn't." "She looked right at me." "She was looking out a window." "At me." Anne risked another glance. Miss Hanratty was sitting behind a table in the classroom where she normally taught arithmetic. A line of adults waited in front of her. "She's working," Anne whispered. Michael peered over the handlebars. "She's sitting in my seat." "That's not your seat." "Tuesday it was." "Tuesday isn't forever."

They crossed the road for a closer look and stopped outside the gate. A man with a badge asked whether they were with anyone. Anne said, "No." He looked toward the road. "Then mind the traffic." He did not throw them out. Encouraged, they stood beside the railings. They saw Mr. O'Neill from the butcher's go inside. Mrs. Kearney followed with her daughter. Their own father arrived on foot shortly after noon and stopped dead when he saw them.

"What are you two doing?" he asked.

Anne answered, "Looking." Michael said, "Nothing." Their father looked from them to the school. "Your mother know you're here?" Neither replied. He sighed. "Stay outside. Don't annoy anyone. And if Miss Hanratty catches you, I'm denying you're mine." He went through the gate.

The twins waited for him to emerge. When he did, Michael stared at his hands. "No stamp." Their father looked down at his fingers. "Were you expecting one?" "Maybe." "You don't get a prize." Anne asked, "Who did you vote for?" Their father tapped her forehead with one finger. "Private." Michael said, "Everybody says that." "Good. Means they're learning." He started home. "Dinner at one. Both of you." Anne called, "We know." Their father turned. "That sounded dangerous." He kept walking.

The twins remained another twenty minutes. They began counting how many voters entered, lost count at thirty-four and started again. A woman asked if they were collecting for something. Michael said no. Anne said they were conducting research. The woman gave them a look and went inside. A little boy with his mother wanted to join them, but his mother pulled him toward the gate. Michael said, "We're popular." Anne said, "We're official." "We're not." "More official than him." She pointed at a dog asleep beneath the wall.

Then Miss Hanratty came out.

The twins froze. She wore a grey cardigan and carried a cup of tea. Her eyes found them immediately. Michael whispered, "Told you." Anne slid off the wall. Miss Hanratty crossed the yard and stopped inside the gate. "Anne Byrne. Michael Byrne." Neither answered. "School is closed." Anne said, "We know." "Yet here you are." Michael said, "We're outside." Miss Hanratty looked at the pavement beneath their shoes. "A formidable legal defence." Anne stared at her cup. "Are you working?" "I am." "In our classroom?" "For today." Michael asked, "Why are you in my seat?" Miss Hanratty blinked. "Which seat is yours?" "Second row, near the window." "That is exactly where I am." Michael looked vindicated. Miss Hanratty sipped her tea. "I'll try not to damage it."

She could have sent them home. Instead she asked what they were counting. Anne admitted they had lost track twice. Miss Hanratty suggested that research improved when written down. She went inside and returned with a sheet of scrap paper and a blunt pencil. "Outside the gate," she said. "No asking people how they voted. No blocking anyone. No pretending you represent the school." Anne took the paper. "We weren't pretending." Miss Hanratty looked at her. Anne added, "Not really." "Home for dinner." "Yes, Miss."

By the time the church clock struck half past twelve, the sheet held forty-seven pencil marks. Anne made the lines. Michael watched the gate. They argued over whether a woman who entered twice counted once or twice and decided once after Miss Hanratty, passing with another cup of tea, said the same person remained the same person. At ten to one they folded the paper and mounted their bicycles.

As they turned toward home, Michael looked back at the school. "Do you think she'll give us homework tomorrow?" Anne said, "School's closed today, not tomorrow." "That's not an answer." "Yes." Michael groaned. They rode side by side, the tally folded into Anne's pocket and the polling station still busy behind them.

Mary Harkin arrived at Miss Bell's house in County Down just before two carrying a loaf, a bottle of milk and strict instructions from her mother not to let the old woman walk to the polling station alone. She found Florence Bell already dressed in a navy coat, gloves and a hat pinned with a silver brooch. Florence was seventy-nine, narrow as a fence post and still perfectly capable of making visitors feel they had arrived late even when they had not. She opened the door before Mary knocked. "You're three minutes early." Mary held up the loaf. "Mam sent this." "Then your mother is forgiven." Florence took the bread and led her into the kitchen. A kettle stood on the range. Mary glanced at the clock. "We'll miss your tea if we go now." "Tea has survived greater emergencies." Florence put the loaf in the bread bin. "Sit down. I want to ask you something before we leave." Mary remained standing. "What?" Florence removed one glove finger by finger. "Do you think I'm a fool?" Mary blinked. "No." "Don't answer until you know the question." Florence set the glove beside the kettle. "Do you think I'm a fool for not knowing how I mean to vote?"

Mary pulled out a chair and sat because Florence's questions usually lasted longer than standing permitted. At nineteen she had known Miss Bell since childhood. Florence had employed Mary's mother for cleaning before arthritis made the stairs difficult and had then hired Mary for errands, washing and companionship she pretended not to need. The campaign had entered the house through newspapers and visitors. Florence read everything, clipped some articles and threw others into the fire. She had asked Mary questions about procedure but never about persuasion. Now she stood with her back to the range. Mary said, "No." Florence's mouth tightened. "Because I'm old?" "Because thinking about it isn't foolish." "That's a careful answer." "You asked a dangerous question." Florence gave the smallest nod. "Your parents know what they're doing?" Mary understood the second trap. "They do." "And you?" "I do." "And you're not telling me." "No." Florence picked up her glove. "Good." Mary rose. "Are we going now?" Florence said, "I believe that was always the plan."

They walked rather than taking the bus. Florence used an umbrella as a stick though no rain fell. The road ran between hedges wet from morning showers. Cars passed at intervals, some carrying whole families. Florence and Mary were overtaken by two women from the village who greeted them and slowed. One asked Florence whether she had "made up her mind yet." Florence replied, "I have made up my mind about several things, including not discussing my ballot in the road." The women laughed, a little embarrassed, and continued. Mary kept her face straight. After they were out of earshot, Florence said, "You're smiling." "I'm not." "I can hear it." Mary looked at the hedge. "You were rude." "I was precise." "Mam says that's what rude people say." Florence nearly laughed and caught herself.

The polling station occupied a parish hall. Chairs lined one wall for older voters. Florence ignored them. Mary followed to the registration desk and stopped at the point where companions were asked to wait. Florence turned. For the first time that afternoon the certainty in her posture loosened. "You'll be here?" she asked. "Right here." "Not outside." "No." Florence studied her face. "You won't ask me." "I won't." "Your mother will." "She won't if I tell her not to." "She'll ask with her eyebrows." Mary said, "That's different." Florence gave her handbag to Mary, keeping only the polling card, and went in.

Mary sat with the handbag on her lap. It was heavier than expected. She could feel a purse, keys, perhaps a book and the hard shape of Florence's spectacle case through the leather. A man near the door was arguing mildly with his adult son about whether they had parked legally. Two young mothers tried to keep toddlers from climbing beneath chairs. The hall smelled of floor polish and damp wool. Florence emerged after several minutes with the card gone and her gloves still tucked beneath one arm. She came toward Mary, stopped and looked back at the ballot box. Mary waited. Florence turned again and sat beside her. "I did it." "I see that." "I nearly asked the clerk whether I could have another five minutes." Mary handed her the handbag. "You didn't." "No." Florence fastened it. "Would've been ridiculous." Mary said nothing. Florence looked sideways. "You agree too quickly."

On the walk home Florence took a different route without explanation. It led past a bakery. She went in and bought two cream buns. Mary protested that she had promised her mother she would be home for dinner. Florence said, "A bun isn't dinner unless standards have collapsed." They ate at Florence's kitchen table with tea. Cream escaped from Mary's bun and landed on her thumb. Florence handed her a napkin. "Undignified." Mary licked the cream off first. Florence looked scandalized and then did the same when some reached her glove. The radio in the sitting room carried reports too quietly to make out. Florence did not turn it up. She finished half the bun, wrapped the rest in paper and put it aside.

Mary was washing the cups when Florence said, "I won't tell you what I voted." "I know." "Not because I don't trust you." Mary dried her hands. Florence sat with both palms around the empty cup. "I want one thing today to belong entirely to me." Mary leaned against the sink. "Then it does." Florence looked at her for several seconds. "You're a good girl." Mary groaned. "I'm nineteen." "That does not prevent you being a girl." "It should." Florence put her gloves back on though she had nowhere to go. "Come tomorrow and argue about it." Mary took her coat from the chair. At the door Florence handed her the wrapped half bun. "For your mother." "She'll know it's half." "Tell her I ate the other half." "She'll know that too." Florence opened the door. Mary stepped out and turned. Florence stood straight in the hall, one hand on the knob. "Thank you for not telling me what to do," she said. Mary nodded. "Thank you for not making me." Florence closed the door gently.

Robert Mercer turned the radio off at five in the afternoon because the voices had begun to repeat themselves. Helen did not object. She sat by the window in their Belfast sitting room mending a cuff on one of Robert's shirts while he stood at the mantel looking at nothing in particular. They had voted after lunch. Their surviving daughter had come with them, full of energy, carrying newspapers and asking whether they wanted to go to her house for the count. Helen had said perhaps. Robert had said no. The daughter had kissed them both and left with her husband. Since then the house had settled back into its familiar quiet. A framed photograph of their son David stood at the far end of the mantel, half hidden behind a vase because Robert had moved the vase there months earlier and Helen had never moved it back. David had been twenty-two when he died in street violence nine years before. The details belonged to police statements, hospital corridors and men who had eventually stopped knocking at the door. The photograph belonged to the room.

Helen bit thread and folded the shirt over her knees. "Tea?" she asked. Robert did not turn. "In a minute." "It'll still be tea in a minute." "Then leave it." She set the shirt aside and went to the kitchen. Robert heard the cupboard door, the kettle, the scrape of a spoon. Through the window children were playing football in the street until a mother shouted for them to come in. One boy kicked the ball hard against a wall. The sound made Robert's shoulders rise. He moved away from the mantel and sat in the chair nearest the cold fireplace. Helen returned carrying two cups and put his on the small table. She did not tell him to drink it.

"Mary rang again," she said. Robert nodded. "She wants us over." "I know." "We don't have to." "I know." Helen lifted her cup. "She'll be disappointed." "She's been disappointed before." "So have we." Robert looked at her. Helen drank tea. There was no accusation in the sentence. She had said it as plainly as she might have said it was raining. Robert picked up his cup. The tea was too hot. He held it instead. After a while Helen said, "David would have been in the middle of all this." Robert's fingers tightened. Helen kept her eyes on the window. "He'd have had posters in the hall." Robert said, "Don't." She nodded. "All right." The room returned to silence.

At six somebody in the street began playing music through an open window. The tune was cheerful and too loud. Robert went to close their own window even though it was already shut. Helen watched him touch the latch and leave it alone. On the television, muted since morning, faces moved beneath captions. Helen reached for the switch. "Do you want it?" Robert shook his head. She left it off. Instead they ate bread, ham and pickles at the kitchen table. The ordinary meal steadied the room. Robert sliced bread too thick. Helen cut her slice in half. A neighbour knocked to ask if their television picture was clear because hers had begun rolling. Robert went next door with a screwdriver and spent twenty minutes adjusting an aerial connection. He returned with grease on one hand and a biscuit in the other. Helen looked at the biscuit. "Payment?" "Apparently." He placed it on her saucer.

As evening deepened, people began gathering in houses up and down the street. Doors opened. Cars arrived. Laughter came and went. Robert stood at the kitchen sink washing the two plates. Helen dried. He passed her one without looking. She put it away. "We could go to Mary's for an hour," she said. Robert rinsed the second plate. "I don't want to be around cheering." "Then we won't." "She'll cheer if it goes her way." "She's entitled." Robert shut off the tap. Water dripped from his hands. Helen waited. He said, "I don't want anyone looking at me to see if I'm doing it right." Helen folded the towel. "Then stay here." "You'll miss it." "I'm not missing anything." Robert looked at her. She hung the towel on its hook. "I'm here."

They returned to the sitting room. Helen took up another piece of mending. Robert sat near the window. At some point he reached for the radio, turned it on low and left it there. Results began coming in from scattered places. Neither reacted beyond listening. Robert's face remained still. Once Helen's needle slipped and pricked her finger. She put it in her mouth, then continued sewing. When a burst of cheering came through the radio from a count centre, Robert's eyes went to David's photograph. He stood, crossed the room and moved the vase six inches to the right so the photograph was fully visible. Helen watched but said nothing. Robert returned to his chair.

Later Mary rang again. Helen answered. Robert could hear their daughter's voice through the receiver, quick and bright. Helen said, "We're fine, love. No, your father's fine. We're staying home." She listened, then smiled faintly. "Yes. Ring us later." She put down the phone. Robert asked, "She happy?" "Very." He nodded. "Good." Helen picked up her sewing. Robert looked again at the photograph. He did not smile. He did not need to. The radio remained low enough that the house could hold both the public noise and its own silence.

At the O'Shea house in Waterford, the first extra person arrived before lunch and the last chair disappeared by four. Siobhan O'Shea had expected her sister and brother-in-law, perhaps one neighbour. By mid-afternoon the sitting room contained her husband Dermot, five of their six children, Aunt Breda, Mrs. Finn from next door, Mrs. Finn's adult son, two cousins, a postman who had called to deliver a letter and somehow remained, and three children who did not belong to the family but had followed somebody in. Coats occupied the hall hooks, banister and back of a kitchen chair. Cups multiplied across every flat surface. Six-year-old Deirdre sat beneath the television with a colouring book while fifteen-year-old Brendan claimed the armchair and filled a school copybook with predicted figures. "You're inventing them," his older sister Eileen told him. "I'm estimating." "From what?" "Reports." "You've heard no reports." "I've heard loads." "Mam, he's writing nonsense." Siobhan called from the kitchen, "Then leave him to write it quietly."

Dermot returned from voting with their eldest son Pat, both damp from a sudden shower. The room demanded information. "Was there a queue?" "Who was there?" "Did they say anything?" Dermot removed his coat. "There were people. They voted. We came home." Aunt Breda said, "Useless man." Pat sat on the floor because no chairs remained. Deirdre looked up. "Did you win?" The room laughed. Dermot crouched beside her. "Nobody's won yet." "Then why'd you go?" "To vote." "For who?" Siobhan called sharply from the kitchen, "Don't ask people that." Deirdre frowned. "Why?" Dermot considered. "Because it's theirs." Deirdre accepted this for perhaps ten seconds, then asked Pat. He covered his mouth with both hands.

The television carried intermittent reports, but the room rarely stayed quiet enough to hear them. Mrs. Finn believed volume solved the problem and turned it up. Aunt Breda complained it was shouting. Brendan demanded silence whenever a map appeared. The postman, Mr. Kelly, kept insisting he would leave after the next cup of tea and accepted three cups. Siobhan moved between kitchen and sitting room with plates of sandwiches, tea bread and biscuits. Every time she entered, another person seemed to have appeared. At five she found the youngest Finn boy sitting on the stairs eating jam from a spoon. "Where'd you get that?" He pointed toward Deirdre. Deirdre, standing two steps above him, hid the jar behind her back. Siobhan confiscated it and sent both to wash their hands.

Not everyone in the room had voted the same way, and the differences surfaced in bursts. Aunt Breda challenged a cousin over something he had repeated from a leaflet. Mr. Kelly corrected a figure. Pat told both to stop talking over the television. Dermot stepped between arguments before they hardened, not by forbidding politics but by refusing prophecy. "None of you knows what the count says yet," he told them. "And nobody in this house is going to tell anybody else they're a fool for what they marked." Aunt Breda said, "I can tell your cousin he's a fool for other reasons." Dermot pointed toward her. "That remains constitutional." Even Siobhan laughed from the doorway.

Dinner became bread, cold meat and whatever could be eaten from a plate on one's knee. Deirdre decided the word referendum referred to the television programme and asked when the referendum would finish so she could watch cartoons. Brendan tried to explain. She listened for thirty seconds and wandered away. Later she returned with a drawing of the family in which every adult held a square piece of paper. Dermot was twice everybody else's size because she had started with him and misjudged the page. Aunt Breda accused her of political bias. Deirdre said, "I ran out of room." Mrs. Finn asked for the picture when she was done. Deirdre refused because it belonged on the fridge.

As the evening moved on, the room became hotter. Windows fogged. Coats slid from hooks. Somebody opened the back door for air and let the dog in with muddy paws. Siobhan shouted. Three children chased it through the hall. Dermot caught the dog by the collar and wiped its feet with an old towel while the television announcer continued speaking to an empty patch of carpet. By the time everyone returned to their places they had missed a report and blamed one another. Brendan furiously recalculated his estimates from fragments. Eileen leaned over his shoulder. "You've changed that three times." "New information." "You heard the word Waterford and nothing else." "That was enough." She stole his pencil. He lunged after it and Siobhan made them both sit apart.

The first clear result quieted the room for perhaps half a minute. Heads turned. Cups paused. The announcer read figures. Some people smiled, others did not. Dermot looked around before looking back at the television. Aunt Breda's hand rested on her knee. Mr. Kelly leaned forward. Siobhan stood in the doorway holding a tea towel. When the figures were done, conversation resumed, lower at first. No one demanded reaction from anyone else. Dermot passed a plate toward Mrs. Finn. Brendan wrote furiously. Deirdre, bored by numbers, crawled beneath the coffee table and found a biscuit somebody had dropped.

By ten the sitting room was a landscape of tired bodies. The younger children slept in heaps. Mr. Kelly had finally stopped claiming he was about to leave. Siobhan sat for the first time in nearly an hour, shoulder against Dermot's. The springs of the sofa sagged toward the middle, forcing them close. She looked at the cups covering the mantel and said, "Nobody leaves until they wash something." Aunt Breda pretended to be asleep. Pat laughed. Deirdre stirred on the rug, opened one eye and murmured, "Is the referendum over?" Dermot looked at the television. "Not yet." She closed her eye again. The house waited together.

Ruth McAllister began her hospital shift before the polls opened and by six in the evening had almost convinced herself that missing the vote was unavoidable. The ward had been short-staffed since breakfast. A patient developed complications before noon; another needed transfer; one family arrived all at once and asked the same questions of three different nurses. Ruth moved through it with her sleeves rolled, hair pinned tight and shoes aching. She kept her polling card in the small pocket inside her handbag in the staff room. Twice she checked the clock. Twice somebody called her name before she reached the door. At half past six Theresa Quinn found her writing observations at the nurses' station. "Have you gone?" Ruth kept writing. "Gone where?" Theresa stared. "Don't be stupid." "I'm not finished." "You've been here since seven." "So have you." "I voted before." Ruth turned a page. "Good for you." Theresa leaned both hands on the desk. "What time's your station close?" Ruth named it. Theresa looked at the clock and swore softly.

Ruth kept writing. "I can't leave." "You can." "Mrs. Campbell needs checking in twenty minutes." "I'll check her." "Mr. Boyd's family are coming back." "I'll deal with them." "You're on the other side." "I know the geography of a ward, Ruth." Ruth put down the pen. "Theresa." "What?" "You don't even know how I'm voting." Theresa's face tightened with exasperation. "That's the point." She pulled the notes toward herself. "Go." Ruth looked toward the beds. Theresa shoved the handbag from beneath the desk into her hands. "If you come back tomorrow complaining you didn't get a vote because you were polishing the same sentence for ten minutes, I'll kill you myself." A patient in the nearest bed called, "Go on, nurse." Ruth turned. Mrs. Campbell was watching over her spectacles. "We're all listening," she said. Three other patients laughed.

Ruth changed into her coat without changing shoes. Theresa followed her to the lift. "Bus'll be slow at this hour." "I know." "Take a taxi." "With what money?" Theresa opened her purse, took out folded notes and pushed them at her. Ruth recoiled. "No." "Pay me tomorrow." "Theresa." "Ruth." They stood face to face. The lift doors opened behind them. Theresa put the money into Ruth's coat pocket and physically turned her toward the lift. "Go." Ruth stepped inside. "If anything happens -" Theresa pressed the button. "I'll cope." The doors closed on her face.

Outside, Belfast traffic had thickened. Ruth tried for a taxi and failed. She walked quickly toward the bus stop, then saw a cab turning the corner and raised both arms. It stopped. The driver leaned across to open the door. "Where to?" She gave the school name and added, "Fast as you can without killing us." He looked at the clock on the dashboard. "Voting?" "Yes." "Right." He pulled away. Ruth sat forward, still in her white hospital shoes, coat unbuttoned, handbag clutched to her stomach. At every red light her foot tapped. The driver took side streets. Twice he muttered at vans blocking junctions. "You'll make it," he said. Ruth did not answer.

They reached the school with less time than she wanted to know. Ruth gave the driver Theresa's note. He tried to hand back most of it. "Keep it." "That's too much." "I don't care." She was out before he could argue. The gate was still open. A clerk at the entrance looked at the clock as Ruth hurried in. "You're all right," he said. She slowed only after reaching the desk. Her name was found. Her hand shook slightly when she took the pencil. In the booth the quiet hit her all at once. No bells, no patients, no wheels on linoleum, no Theresa telling her to hurry. She marked the paper, folded it and put it in the box. The official said, "Long day?" Ruth looked down at the white shoes. "You could say that." She left smiling despite herself.

There was no taxi outside. Ruth ran part of the way to the bus stop, caught a bus and spent the journey back standing because every seat was occupied. She reached the ward flushed and breathless. Theresa was changing a dressing. Ruth waited until she finished. Theresa stripped off gloves and looked at her. "Well?" Ruth took the folded change from her pocket and placed it in Theresa's palm. "Done." Theresa closed her fingers around the money. "Good." Ruth said, "Mrs. Campbell?" "Fine. Mr. Boyd's family? Loud but survivable. And nobody died while democracy had you." Ruth hung up her coat. "You are never letting this go." "Not a chance." Mrs. Campbell called from her bed, "Did you vote, nurse?" Ruth raised her voice. "I did." A small cheer travelled along the ward, more teasing than political. Ruth picked up the notes she had abandoned and returned to work.

The Kavanagh pub in Kilkenny opened at eleven and did not become busy until four, when people began arriving in small groups with the peculiar energy of those who had completed an errand they had been discussing for months. Liam Kavanagh sat at the end of the counter with a pint he had been nursing since noon. At eighty, he had earned the right to occupy the same stool regardless of whether customers needed it. His son Pat worked the taps. Pat's daughter Eilis carried plates from the kitchen while her five-year-old son Ciaran travelled beneath tables with a wooden truck, emerging only when somebody dropped a crisp. The family had arranged voting around the pub as if it were another delivery. Eilis went first in the morning. Pat went after lunch. Liam refused every offer of a lift and walked to the school with his stick, returning an hour later because he had stopped twice to talk. Nobody asked how anybody else had voted. They had discussed the referendum enough in the preceding weeks to know where questions ended and tempers began.

By five the front room was full. Farmers, shopkeepers, two teachers, a butcher, a young couple with a baby and three men from the council occupied the tables. The radio behind the bar moved between music and reports. Every time a bulletin began, conversation dipped and then rose again when the announcer offered no result. Ciaran came from beneath a table holding a coin. "Grandad." Pat looked over the bar. "Where'd you get that?" Ciaran pointed beneath Mr. Brennan's chair. Mr. Brennan patted his pockets. "That's mine." Ciaran handed it back solemnly. "Find any notes under there?" Mr. Brennan asked. Ciaran bent to look. Eilis caught the back of his jumper. "No treasure hunting." "He asked." "He was joking." Ciaran looked at Mr. Brennan with disappointment. Mr. Brennan apologised and gave him a crisp instead.

The first argument began near the fireplace. It involved Mr. Doyle, who had been certain of the result since February, and Nora Ryan, who had spent the campaign telling anyone who predicted anything to stop pretending they were prophets. Doyle quoted a number from a newspaper. Nora said the number was three weeks old. Doyle said the trend mattered. Nora said his trend was a wish wearing a hat. Pat let them go for several minutes, polishing glasses, until Doyle raised his voice and two nearby tables began listening. Pat put down the cloth. "You can argue facts. You can argue figures. You can even argue whether Doyle owns a hat. Nobody tells anybody in here what they ought to have done in the booth." Doyle looked at Nora. Nora lifted her glass. "Fine by me." Doyle muttered, "I never said -" Pat pointed to the pint in front of him. "Drink that before it goes stale." Liam, at the end of the counter, took a slow mouthful and said nothing.

A younger man named Kevin Walsh came in shortly afterward wearing a campaign badge on his coat. He had forgotten it was there until someone on the opposite side made a remark. Kevin touched the badge, looked around and removed it without protest, slipping it into his pocket. Pat nodded thanks. The pub had no rule against badges, but everybody understood the gesture. Eilis carried a tray past and nearly collided with Ciaran, who had attached the wooden truck to a piece of string and was towing it between legs. "Kitchen," she told him. "I'm working." "You're making me work." Ciaran dragged the truck toward the kitchen. Liam watched him go. "Boy's got industry." Eilis said, "You can employ him." Liam looked at his pint. "Retired." "Convenient." She smiled and went back to the kitchen.

At six, a coach stopped outside and disgorged seven people who had been visiting relatives. They filled the remaining space and brought stories from two polling stations, none verifiable. One woman insisted the queue at her sister's school had reached the gate. A man said it had only looked long because people were standing badly. Another claimed a clerk had run out of pencils and been corrected by three people who had been there. The radio provided less drama. Liam listened with his head tilted whenever a reporter came on. At one point Mr. Doyle asked him, "What do you make of it, Liam?" The whole counter turned. Liam looked down at the foam ring inside his glass. "Make of what?" "The day." Liam looked around the room. "Busy enough." Doyle laughed. "You know what I mean. You've seen more changes than the rest of us." Liam's eyes moved to Ciaran, who had returned and was now rolling the truck along the brass rail beneath the bar. "I've seen enough to know I'm not giving a speech because you bought a pint." The room laughed and Doyle accepted defeat.

Dinner was taken in shifts. Eilis ate stew in the kitchen while Pat covered her tables. Pat ate at the end of the bar beside Liam. Ciaran sat on a flour tin in the kitchen and dipped bread into gravy. Outside, dusk settled over the street. More people arrived after voting. A woman came in still holding her polling card, discovered it in her hand and tucked it into her handbag with embarrassment. Two men from a nearby farm stood at the door because there was nowhere to sit. The baby at the young couple's table woke and began crying. Ciaran abandoned his truck to stare. Eilis lifted the baby for the mother while she adjusted a shawl. Ciaran asked if he could hold it. Eilis said no. He asked Liam. Liam said, "Your mother outranks me in babies." Ciaran seemed to find this unjust.

The radio gave the first firm figures. Conversations ceased in ragged stages until even the kitchen doorway filled. Pat turned the volume up. The announcer read numbers carefully. Some faces brightened. Others became still. A man near the fireplace set down his glass and looked at the floor. Nora Ryan folded her arms. Mr. Doyle did not say I told you so, perhaps because Pat was watching him. Liam sat with both hands around his pint. When the bulletin ended, sound returned slowly. Nobody cheered. Not yet. Pat lowered the radio. He began pulling pints again. A customer who had been disappointed by the figures asked for another. Pat served it without comment. A man at the other end who had liked them paid for his round without celebration. The room held together.

Later, when another result came in, the restraint loosened. A few people clapped. Someone near the door gave a shout before catching himself. The disappointed man at the counter flinched. Eilis saw it and put a fresh glass of water beside him. He thanked her. Across the room Mr. Doyle stood as though intending to speak. Nora Ryan pointed at him. "Not one word." He sat again. Liam began laughing. Doyle looked wounded. "I wasn't going to say anything." Liam shook his head. "That's the funniest thing you've said all year." Even the disappointed man smiled into his pint.

Ciaran climbed onto the empty stool beside Liam and whispered something in his ear. Liam listened, then nodded gravely. Ciaran went to Pat and said, "Great-Grandad says I can have lemonade." Pat looked down the bar. Liam studied the ceiling. "Did he now?" Ciaran nodded. Pat poured half a glass and added water. "That's your lot." Ciaran carried it back in both hands. He sat beside Liam, feet nowhere near the floor, and raised the glass. Liam touched his pint to it. The room around them argued, laughed, fell silent for bulletins and filled again. Ciaran drank too quickly and got bubbles up his nose. Liam handed him a handkerchief.

Near ten, people began asking what would happen next. The questions were larger than anything the room could answer. Pat stopped pretending to listen after the third. Eilis collected plates. Ciaran fell asleep beneath Liam's coat on the bench. Liam had moved from his stool to sit beside him. A young man approached and asked whether Liam remembered another historic vote from decades earlier. Liam said he remembered being hungry afterward. The young man waited for more. Liam adjusted the coat over Ciaran's legs. "Everybody wants old men to turn life into a lesson," he said. "Most days are just days while you're in them." The young man looked toward the radio. "This doesn't feel like just a day." Liam nodded. "Then keep your eyes open." He rested one hand on the sleeping child's shoe.

When closing time approached, Pat began collecting glasses while the radio remained on. Some customers lingered over the final numbers. Others left to join family elsewhere. Doyle and Nora departed together because they lived in the same direction, still disputing turnout figures as they went. The disappointed man shook Pat's hand at the door. "Good house," he said. Pat answered, "Safe home." Eilis lifted Ciaran from the bench. He woke enough to put both arms around her neck. Liam rose slowly with his stick. Pat came around the bar to steady him. Liam shook him off after one step, then took the offered arm on the second. Outside, the street carried voices from other pubs and houses. Inside, Eilis switched off the lamps one by one until only the radio dial glowed behind the counter.

Eleanor Boyd took the polling card from the mantel three times before finally putting it into her handbag. Her father noticed on the third attempt but said nothing. Her mother stood at the cooker turning potatoes in a pan. The Derry kitchen had been unusually polite all morning. William Boyd read the newspaper without commenting on headlines. Alice Boyd hummed while she worked, stopping whenever the radio announcer mentioned the referendum. Eleanor, nineteen and voting for the first time in anything, moved between them with the sense that one careless question would turn breakfast into debate. Her parents had spent months disagreeing. They had done it without shouting and without changing each other's minds, which somehow made the difference more visible. William had his reasons. Alice had hers. Both had made clear that Eleanor would receive neither instruction nor approval.

"You going now?" Alice asked when Eleanor put on her coat. "Aye." William turned a page. "Rain's coming." Eleanor looked through the window at a bright patch of sky. "It isn't." "Take the umbrella." Alice said, "Leave her alone, Will." "I'm talking about weather." "You make weather sound political." William folded the newspaper. "How?" Eleanor took the umbrella to end the matter. "I'll be back." Alice wiped her hands and came toward her, then stopped before doing whatever she had intended. "Right." William said, "Mind the corner by the post office. Car nearly had Mrs. Clarke there yesterday." Eleanor nodded. She opened the door. Neither parent asked to accompany her.

She walked slowly despite the umbrella. People she knew passed in both directions. At the chemist she saw two girls from school who had left the year before. They compared polling stations and laughed about one girl's father wearing a tie. Eleanor kept moving. The school being used for her district had a queue through the corridor but not out the door. She took her place behind a young couple. The husband held a baby while his wife searched her handbag for a card. Ahead, an elderly priest stood beside a woman in a headscarf. The line advanced in small steps. Eleanor looked at children's paintings taped to the wall. One showed a red house beneath a yellow sun. Another had a blue horse taller than the tree beside it. Nothing in the corridor looked equal to the noise outside it.

At the desk Eleanor gave her name. The clerk found it and handed over the ballot. She took the pencil into the booth. For the first time all day nobody else's reasons occupied the room. There was no father lowering a newspaper, no mother tightening her mouth at a radio voice, no neighbours speaking in the shop. Eleanor read the paper once, then again. She made the mark. Her hand remained on the pencil for a moment. Then she folded the ballot and carried it to the box. The official nodded. Eleanor put it in. The sound was almost nothing.

Outside, rain had started after all. She opened her father's umbrella and stood beneath the school awning while it strengthened. One of the girls from school came out and asked how she had voted. Eleanor said, "Private." The girl grinned. "Your ma and da are opposite, aren't they?" Eleanor looked at her. "That's private too." The girl lifted both hands. "All right." She ran into the rain without an umbrella. Eleanor waited another minute, then began walking home. Water gathered at the kerbs. The umbrella pulled in the wind. At the post office corner a car turned too quickly and sprayed her shoes. She stepped back, looked at the wet leather and heard her father's warning in the most irritating possible way.

At home Alice had set the table for dinner. William had moved from the kitchen to the sitting room but his newspaper lay folded on the chair. Eleanor hung the umbrella in the hall. "You were right about the rain," she called. William appeared in the doorway. "I usually am." Alice, behind him, said, "Once a year." Eleanor took off her shoes and set them near the range. Neither asked about the ballot. She waited for the question anyway. It did not come. Alice put a plate in front of her. William passed the salt. Dinner began with potatoes, cabbage and ham and remained stubbornly ordinary.

Halfway through, William said, "Crowded?" Eleanor nodded. "A bit." Alice asked, "Anyone you knew?" "Jean Miller." "Her mother was in the shop yesterday." William said, "Did they still have those terrible green walls in the school?" Eleanor looked at him. "Blue now." "Improvement." Alice cut her ham. "Anything would be." Eleanor's shoulders loosened. She ate. The question she had prepared herself to resist never arrived.

After dinner William washed and Alice dried. Eleanor sat at the table with tea. The radio carried reports from elsewhere. William reached to turn it up, then glanced at Alice. She said, "Go on." He raised the volume. They listened together. When a reporter mentioned a district where turnout had been high, Alice said, "My sister'll have stood in line for an hour rather than go later." William said, "Your sister would stand in line for an hour if someone told her not to." Alice smiled despite herself. Eleanor watched them from the table.

The first result they heard clearly did not please one parent and did please the other. Alice's hand stopped on the tea towel. William's mouth tightened. Neither spoke for several seconds. Eleanor looked from one to the other. William reached for the kettle. "More tea?" he asked. Alice handed him her cup. "Half." He poured. He filled Eleanor's without asking and his own last. The radio continued. Alice sat beside Eleanor. William took the chair opposite. Their three cups made a small triangle on the table.

A neighbour knocked later and burst in talking before the door was fully open. She wanted to compare figures, had heard rumours from a cousin and clearly expected the Boyds to declare themselves. Alice let her talk. William corrected one number. Eleanor said almost nothing. When the neighbour finally asked, "And what did you do, Ellie?" both parents answered at once. Alice said, "That's hers," while William said, "None of our business." They stopped and looked at each other. The neighbour blinked. Eleanor stared into her tea so nobody would see the sudden movement in her face. Alice cleared her throat. "Biscuit?" The neighbour accepted one.

When the visitor left, William closed the door and leaned his forehead against it briefly. "That woman could interrogate a stone." Alice said, "She'd get a confession." Eleanor took the cups to the sink. William returned to his chair. The radio remained on. Different results moved through the room, some pleasing one parent, some the other. Neither pretended indifference. Alice sighed once. William muttered once. But when Eleanor carried in a fresh pot of tea, her father lifted the tray from her before it tipped and her mother moved the sugar bowl to make room. The three of them settled again around the same table and listened.

David Campbell was eight and had been given one job: walk Mr. McBride to the polling station and carry the umbrella if it rained. His mother repeated the instructions while buttoning his coat, though the McBride cottage stood only four houses away along the Tyrone road. "You do not run ahead. You do not badger him with questions. You do not lose the umbrella." David stood still until she finished. "What if he badgers me with questions?" His mother stared at him. His father, sitting at the kitchen table with the evening paper, lowered it enough to hide a smile. "Then you answer politely." David nodded. "What if he loses the umbrella?" "Go." She opened the door and put the umbrella into his hand.

Seán McBride was waiting at his own gate in a brown coat and flat cap, one hand resting on a polished walking stick. He had shaved for the occasion and put on a tie that sat slightly crooked beneath his collar. David noticed at once but had been taught not to tell older men their ties were crooked unless they were family. "Evening, Mr. McBride." "Evening, David." Seán looked at the umbrella. "Your mother expecting a flood?" David looked up at the sky. "She said it might rain." "Your mother says that every day." "Sometimes she's right." "Dangerous habit." Seán pushed the gate closed. "We'd better go before she sends a boat after us."

They set off at Seán's pace. David had been warned not to run ahead, so he walked with exaggerated slowness for the first hundred yards until Seán stopped. "Have you hurt your leg?" "No." "Then why are you walking like a priest at a funeral?" David looked guilty. "Mam said not to go too fast." Seán tapped the stick against the verge. "There's not going too fast and there's dying on the road. Walk normal. I'll tell you if I need you slower." David immediately lengthened his stride, then shortened it by half. Seán shook his head. "Close enough."

The polling station was in a school two miles away. David's mother had offered to drive, but Seán had refused, saying he had walked farther for less important things. The road dipped between hedges and fields. Cattle stood near a gate watching them pass. David could hear a tractor somewhere beyond a rise. For the first few minutes he obeyed the order about questions. He concentrated on carrying the umbrella properly, hooked over one shoulder. Then Seán asked, "Quiet today, aren't you?" David looked up. "Mam said not to badger you." "Did she?" "Yes." "Your mam's a tyrant." David grinned because he knew Seán liked his mother. "Can I ask one thing?" "You can ask ten. I reserve the right not to answer nine."

David thought carefully. "What was Ireland like when you were eight?" Seán took three steps before replying. "Wetter." David frowned. "Was it?" "Probably." "I mean what was it like." "Mud. School. Potatoes. Your great-grandfather shouting at geese." David waited for more. "Did you have a car?" "No." "Did anyone?" "Somebody did." "Did you have a television?" Seán gave him a sidelong look. "No." David stopped walking. "None?" "Not in the house." "What did you do at night?" "Sat in darkness and stared at the wall." David looked horrified. Seán held the expression for three seconds, then his mouth twitched. "We had lamps. We had books. We talked. We played cards. We went visiting." David caught up. "You were joking." "A little." "Mam says not to tell lies." "Tell her I'm seventy-five and beyond reform."

At the next gate they met Mrs. Donnelly, who was walking home from voting with her daughter. She greeted Seán and asked whether he was only going now. "I'm making an entrance," he said. Mrs. Donnelly looked at David. "And you've a guard." David straightened. Seán said, "Armed with an umbrella." Mrs. Donnelly's daughter asked David whether he had voted. He said, "I'm eight," in a tone suggesting this was a defect in the law rather than his age. She laughed. The adults exchanged a few words about the queue. Nobody said how anyone had voted. When they moved on, David asked, "Did people vote when you were eight?" Seán said, "People always find something to vote about if you leave them long enough."

The rain arrived halfway there, sudden enough that David yelped when the first cold drops hit his neck. He opened the umbrella. Wind caught it and nearly pulled it from his hands. Seán grabbed the handle. "Both of us." They walked close beneath it, David on the ditch side. The umbrella was too small. Seán's left shoulder became wet. David tried to tilt it toward him. "You'll fall in the ditch," Seán said. "You're getting soaked." "I've been wet before." David tilted it anyway. Seán moved his hand up the shaft and held it in the middle so the canopy covered them evenly. "Compromise," he said. "What's that?" "When neither person gets exactly what they want and both claim victory." David considered this. "Like sharing pudding." "Exactly like sharing pudding."

By the time they reached the school, rain had driven most waiting voters under the awning. The entrance was crowded but orderly. David and Seán shook water from their coats. A volunteer brought Seán a chair. He declined until David said, "Mam told you not to be stubborn." Seán stared at him. "Your mother did not tell me anything." "She would've." The volunteer laughed. Seán sat.

David stood beside him holding the closed umbrella between his knees. The corridor fascinated him. Adults moved through doors usually reserved for children. Notices had been pinned over multiplication tables. A voting screen stood where David imagined a teacher's desk normally sat. He asked Seán what happened behind it. Seán said, "Private business." David asked whether the pencil was special. Seán said no. David asked whether anyone checked the mark. Seán said no. David asked what happened if somebody changed their mind after putting the paper in the box. Seán said, "Then they live with it." David looked at the ballot box. "Forever?" "Until the next time people get asked something." David nodded solemnly.

When Seán's turn came, he handed David his walking stick and went to the desk. David held the stick upright like a ceremonial staff. A polling clerk noticed and said, "Don't run off with that." David said, "He needs it." Seán looked back. "Less than you think." He took the ballot and disappeared behind the screen.

David watched the bottom of Seán's shoes beneath the partition. They did not move for a while. He wondered whether Seán had forgotten what he came to do. Then the shoes shifted. Seán emerged, folded the paper and placed it into the box. David watched the paper vanish through the slot. Seán returned, took his stick and said, "Done." David looked disappointed. "That's it?" "That's it." "It took ages to get here." "Democracy has poor entertainment value." David followed him toward the door.

The rain had stopped. Evening light came low beneath the clouds, turning wet leaves bright. Seán did not immediately start home. He stood at the school gate looking toward a small shop across the road. "Ice cream," he said. David looked at him. "Mam said we're to come straight back." "Your mam isn't here." "She'll know." "How?" "She always does." Seán crossed the road. David hurried after him.

The shopkeeper knew Seán and greeted him by name. Seán bought two ice cream wafers. David accepted his with both hands. "This is bribery." "For what?" "Not telling Mam." Seán bit into his wafer. "Then it's a poor bribe, because I'm telling her myself." They sat on a bench beneath the shop window. Cars passed on the wet road. People went in and out of the polling station opposite. David licked ice cream from the edge before it dripped. "How'd you vote?" he asked. Seán continued eating. "Private business." "I won't tell." "Still private." "Did you know before you went in?" Seán looked across at the school. "Mostly." "Mostly?" "I knew enough." David considered asking more and decided the answer would be the same.

Instead he returned to the old days. "What was your first car?" Seán's face changed. "Ah. Now that's a proper question." He set the wafer wrapper on his knee. "Austin Seven. Black. Looked better from twenty yards away than it did close." David forgot the referendum entirely. Seán described buying the car from a man who swore the engine was sound, then discovering that sound was precisely what the engine produced in abundance. He described starting handles, punctures, a door that opened on bends if not tied shut and the winter morning he had to reverse up a hill because first gear would not take it forward. David listened with his mouth open. "You drove backward up a hill?" "Only once." "Was it dangerous?" "Extremely." "Did you crash?" "Obviously not." "How do I know?" Seán pointed at himself. "Evidence."

They started home with David asking questions faster than Seán could answer. Did the car have a radio? No. Did it have heat? In theory. How fast did it go? Faster than Seán's father approved. Did girls like it? Seán looked scandalized. "What sort of question is that?" David said, "A proper one." Seán laughed so hard he had to stop walking.

At a bend they passed a farmhouse where a family had gathered around a radio near an open window. A result was being read. Seán slowed. David slowed with him. The announcer's voice carried across the yard, numbers rising and falling beneath static. One of the people inside cheered; another said something David could not hear. Seán listened until the report ended, then resumed walking. David asked, "Was that good?" Seán said, "For somebody." "For you?" "Private business." David sighed dramatically. "Everything's private." "Not everything. My first car was black. You know that now."

They reached Seán's cottage just as the light was fading. David expected to leave him at the gate, but Seán said, "Come in. I owe your mother a telephone call." He went to the hall phone and dialled the Campbells. David could hear his mother answer. Seán said, "I have your son. He forced me to eat ice cream." David shouted, "I did not." Seán turned his back. "Terrible influence. I'll return him shortly." A pause. "Yes, we voted." Another pause. "Yes, I sat down. He bullied me." David could hear his mother's laughter through the receiver from several feet away.

Seán put down the phone and went to the kitchen. "Tea." David said, "Mam said straight back." "She said you can stay ten minutes." "Did she?" "Private business." David groaned. Seán put the kettle on.

The cottage kitchen was small and warm. On one wall hung a photograph of Seán's late wife in a hat with flowers on it. David knew her only from the picture. Beside it hung a calendar and a rack of keys. Seán made tea for himself and milk for David, then opened a tin of biscuits. David chose a chocolate one. The radio sat on the windowsill. Seán turned it on low. More results were beginning to arrive. He did not lean toward it. He sat across from David.

"Did your first car have seat belts?" David asked.

Seán nearly choked on tea. "No." "None?" "None." "Mam would kill you." "Your mam wasn't born." "She'd still know." Seán nodded. "Fair point."

The ten minutes became twenty. David learned that Seán's first tractor had been red, that a horse named Molly had once bitten him, that he had broken his wrist falling from a hayloft and that his schoolmaster could throw chalk with frightening accuracy. In exchange, David explained how his teacher had confiscated a catapult from Patrick Donnelly and why the football team should move him from goal to midfield. Seán listened with the same seriousness he had given the referendum reports.

When David's father finally appeared at the door, he looked from the biscuit tin to the empty ice cream wrappers Seán had failed to hide. "Straight there and back, was it?" David pointed at Seán. "He made me." Seán said, "Your son is corrupt." David's father hung his coat on the peg. "His mother sent me because she knew one of you would be." He accepted tea.

A fresh result came over the radio. All three listened. David did not understand the numbers but recognized the adults' attention. His father and Seán exchanged a glance. Neither said how he had voted. When the bulletin ended, Seán reached for another biscuit. David's father said, "You'll spoil your supper." Seán looked at him. "You're in my house." David laughed loud enough to spill his milk.

They left ten minutes later. At the gate Seán handed David the umbrella. "You did all right." David held it by the curved handle. "At what?" "Guarding me." "You bought ice cream without permission." "Your security failed." David thought this over. "Next time I'm bringing handcuffs." Seán closed the gate. "Good night, Constable Campbell." David and his father started home. After a few steps David turned and waved. Seán remained at the gate, one hand lifted. The radio was still audible through his open kitchen window as father and son walked down the wet road together.

By half past eight the maternity ward in Derry had developed its own weather. Heat sat high beneath the ceiling. Windows were cracked open despite the evening chill. A radio on the nurses' desk faded in and out whenever someone walked past it carrying metal trays. The corridor smelled of disinfectant, tea and toast. In the first labour room, Siobhan Kelly had stopped caring about the referendum somewhere between one contraction and the next. Her husband, Martin, still cared enough for both of them. He had been told twice not to leave the room during contractions and had still managed to drift toward the door whenever a bulletin began. Siobhan caught the sleeve of his shirt as he tilted his head toward the corridor. "If you move," she said through clenched teeth, "I'll break your fingers." Martin came back at once. "I wasn't moving." "You were moving in your soul." The midwife, Nora McBride, hid a smile behind the chart. Martin offered Siobhan his hand again. She took it and squeezed until his knuckles whitened.

In the next room, Margaret Wilson lay propped against pillows with her hair damp at the temples while her sister June fanned her with a folded newspaper. Margaret's husband had been sent home briefly to check on their two older children and was expected back before the birth. Margaret had told him that if he missed it because he stopped to hear a result in a pub she would name the child after whichever politician annoyed him most. June had laughed. Margaret had not. Now the newspaper used as a fan carried a huge referendum headline that appeared and disappeared in front of Margaret's face. "Turn it around," she said. June stopped. "What?" "I don't want that man's face coming at me every five seconds." June reversed the paper. The back page showed football. Margaret nodded. "Better." A contraction began. June threw down the paper and took her hand.

The nurses moved between both rooms. Nora had been on duty since the afternoon and had already delivered one baby while the mother demanded updates from the count between pushes. Another nurse, twenty-three-year-old Bernadette Lynch, had begun her shift determined to hear every result and had abandoned that ambition after an hour. She checked the radio when she passed, picked up fragments and carried them into rooms only if someone asked. Siobhan asked once. Martin asked constantly. Margaret told June that anyone mentioning percentages would be put out. The ward therefore held the national evening at different volumes. In one room a father whispered figures. In another, a mother ordered politics banned. In the corridor a cleaner turned the radio up while mopping and down when a nurse approached.

Siobhan had arrived shortly after four wearing a good coat because she and Martin had been on their way back from voting when the first unmistakable pains began. The coat now hung from the back of a chair with the polling cards still in one pocket. Every time Martin saw the coat he seemed to remember the outside world. Siobhan noticed on the third occasion. "Stop looking at it." "I'm not." "You are." "I'm looking at your coat." "Why?" Martin failed to produce an answer quickly enough. Nora checked Siobhan, then said, "You've time yet." Siobhan glared. "Don't say that like it's good news." Nora answered, "It's accurate news." Siobhan breathed through her nose. Martin leaned close and asked if she wanted water. She said yes. He spilled half of it on the sheet. Nora took the cup from him and told him to sit down before his wife had two patients to worry about.

Margaret's husband, David, returned at nine carrying a paper bag of oranges, a cardigan Margaret had not asked for and the wrong pair of slippers. He entered the room looking proud of having remembered anything. Margaret stared at the slippers. "Those are yours." David looked down. They were brown men's slippers with flattened heels. June covered her mouth with the newspaper. David said, "I took the bag by the door." Margaret closed her eyes. "My slippers are blue." "I can go back." "You will not leave this building." "Right." He put the slippers beneath the chair. "The children are fine. Mam has them." Margaret opened one eye. "Did you vote?" "Before I came back." "Good." "There was a queue." Margaret closed the eye again. "If the next word is turnout, I'll throw an orange at you." David placed the bag out of reach.

A result came over the corridor radio and caused a sudden swell of voices from the waiting area. Martin's head turned. Siobhan's hand shot out and caught his ear. "Ow." "Eyes here." "I heard shouting." "I'm about to do more." Nora said, "She's got a point." Martin rubbed his ear and bent toward his wife. "I'm here." Siobhan breathed. The contraction passed. She opened her eyes. "What was it?" Martin blinked. "What?" "The result." Nora laughed outright this time. Siobhan pointed at her. "Don't you start." Martin told her the district and the figures as best he had heard them. She listened, then said, "Right," and reached for the water.

The two women had not met before that evening, but the thin walls and shared corridor made privacy imperfect. During a quieter stretch Margaret heard Siobhan swearing at Martin and laughed so suddenly that her own breathing broke. Siobhan heard it through the wall. "Who's laughing?" she called. Margaret answered, "Me." Siobhan said, "You wait." Margaret called back, "I'm trying." Nora stood in the doorway between rooms, hands on hips. "If the pair of you start a conversation I'll put you in the same room." Margaret said, "Might improve the service." Siobhan added, "Her husband brought his own slippers." David looked betrayed. "How did she know that?" June laughed until she had to sit down.

After that, the wall became less of a boundary. In pauses between contractions the women exchanged short remarks through the open doors. Siobhan asked Margaret whether this was her first. Margaret said third. Margaret asked Siobhan the same. First. Siobhan said, "Then you've no excuse for still being here." Margaret said, "I'm showing you how it's done slowly." Martin and David met in the corridor at the water jug and immediately began behaving like comrades returned from separate fronts. David warned Martin not to bring the wrong slippers. Martin said he had brought no slippers at all. David said that was probably safer. Bernadette told both men to stop blocking the corridor.

The radio continued in fragments. One result pleased Martin enough that his shoulders lifted before he remembered where he was. Another made David go very still. Neither man spoke across the difference. They carried water, held hands, fetched towels and obeyed instructions. The outside argument had no room to grow in a corridor where both could hear their wives breathing through pain. When Martin returned to Siobhan, she saw something in his face and asked, "Bad?" He said, "Not what I wanted." She nodded, reached for his hand and pulled him closer as the next contraction began. In the other room, David gave Margaret a figure she had asked for. She said, "We'll see," then made him count breaths with her.

A little after ten, Nora decided Siobhan's baby had become the only event in the building worth announcing. The room changed. Extra equipment came in. Bernadette tied back a loose strand of Siobhan's hair. Martin went pale enough that Nora ordered him to sit for thirty seconds and drink something. Siobhan found this offensive. "He's not having it." "I know," Nora said. "I'd like him conscious." Martin drank water and returned. From the next room Margaret called, "Good luck." Siobhan managed, "You too," before the next wave took speech away.

The radio outside was turned down. Nobody had asked for that; Bernadette did it with one hand as she passed. The ward narrowed to instructions, breath, sheets, Martin's voice close to Siobhan's ear and Nora's steady direction. Siobhan cursed Martin twice, apologised once and cursed him again. He accepted all three with equal seriousness. At one point she told him never to touch her again. He said, "All right," and Nora said, "Don't agree too quickly." Siobhan laughed despite herself, then immediately regretted the movement. Minutes stretched and broke apart. Martin stopped looking anywhere except at her.

When the baby finally arrived, the first sound was smaller than the work that had produced it and then suddenly enormous. Martin's face collapsed. Siobhan, exhausted and furious and laughing at once, reached toward the bundle before Nora had finished whatever practical things had to be done. "Girl," Nora said. "You've a girl." Martin made a sound that was not a word. Siobhan looked at him. "Don't start." Tears were already running down his face. "I'm not." "You are." "I know." The baby was placed against her. Siobhan touched the wet dark hair with one finger. The room quieted around them.

From next door Margaret heard the cry and lifted her head. "That's hers?" June nodded, smiling. David stood in the doorway and called softly, "Congratulations." Martin appeared a moment later, crying openly and grinning with no dignity at all. "Girl," he said. Margaret raised a hand. "Well done, both of you." Siobhan's tired voice came from inside. "Mostly me." Margaret laughed. David said, "She's right." Martin nodded immediately. "Absolutely." Nora sent him back to his wife.

The baby had barely been wrapped when a fresh cheer rose from somewhere outside the ward, louder than before. Martin looked toward the door by reflex. Siobhan followed his glance this time without catching him. "Go on," she said. He looked at her. "What?" "Ask." "I'm not leaving." "Ask from the door, then." He stepped into the corridor and called to Bernadette, "What happened?" She told him the latest result. Martin listened, came back and repeated it. Siobhan looked down at the child. "She doesn't care." The baby opened her mouth and made a small furious sound. Martin said, "She has strong views." Siobhan gave him a look. "Don't put politics on her before she's been washed."

Margaret's labour intensified soon after. June stopped fanning. David stopped noticing the radio. The brown slippers sat beneath the chair, absurd and forgotten. Margaret had been chatty through much of the evening; now she spoke only when necessary. Nora moved between rooms but Bernadette took the lead with Margaret, calm and direct. David held his wife's hand. She squeezed hard enough to leave nail marks. "I'm sorry," she gasped once. He said, "Don't you dare apologise." She squeezed harder. "I wasn't." June stood at Margaret's other side and wiped her forehead.

Siobhan, resting with the baby against her, could hear the change next door. She asked Nora how Margaret was. "Busy." "That's not an answer." "It's the answer you're getting." Siobhan adjusted the blanket around the baby. Martin had found the polling cards in the coat and was using one to fan his face. Siobhan snatched it from him. "You'll tear it." "We don't need it now." "Still mine." She tucked both cards into the handbag. Outside, another bulletin began. Martin did not turn his head.

Nearly an hour after Siobhan's daughter arrived, Margaret began pushing. David counted badly. June corrected him. Margaret told both to stop counting. Bernadette told them to listen to her instead. The room filled with the same concentrated labour that had occupied the one next door. Margaret's face tightened, released, tightened again. She gripped David by the wrist rather than the hand. When he whispered that she was doing brilliantly, she said, "I know," with such force that June laughed and cried at the same time.

The second baby's cry came sharp and indignant. David bent over Margaret's shoulder, tears dropping onto the sheet. "Boy," Bernadette said. Margaret closed her eyes and smiled without opening them. "Give him here." When the baby was placed against her, she opened her eyes and touched his cheek. David kissed her hair. June stood with both hands pressed to her mouth. From the next room Siobhan called, "What is it?" David laughed through tears and shouted back, "A boy." Siobhan called, "Congratulations." Margaret answered weakly, "Thank you." Nora, in the corridor, said to nobody in particular, "There. Now perhaps the whole ward can settle down."

It did not. The waiting room erupted again when another result was announced. A porter came through carrying fresh linen and tried to tell Bernadette what the figures meant. She told him to put the sheets in the cupboard. Martin borrowed the brown slippers by mistake when he went to the lavatory, then returned wearing them and only noticed because David stared. "Those are mine," David said. Martin looked down. Margaret began laughing so hard that Bernadette told her to mind her stitches. Siobhan heard and demanded to know what had happened. The story travelled through the wall. Martin took off the slippers and padded back in his socks while both families laughed at him.

For a little while the referendum receded entirely. Siobhan fed her daughter with Nora helping position the baby. Margaret's son slept against her chest. June made tea. David peeled one of the oranges and divided it between everyone who wanted a piece. Martin found two chairs and dragged one into the corridor so the men could sit without crowding the rooms. The radio murmured, almost ignored. When Bernadette eventually turned it up for a major bulletin, she called softly through both doors first. "Do you want this?" Siobhan said yes. Margaret said, "Might as well." The volume rose.

Everyone listened from where they were. Siobhan lay with her daughter tucked beneath her chin, Martin sitting close enough that his knee touched the bed. Margaret held her son, David standing behind her shoulder and June perched on the window ledge. Nora paused at the foot of the bed with a chart in her hand. Bernadette stood in the corridor. The announcer read figures from several places. The totals were not final. The shape of the night was becoming clearer without yet becoming certainty. Martin and David reacted differently to individual numbers. Neither looked at the other. Their wives listened with tired, unreadable faces.

When the bulletin ended, Margaret said, "Turn it down again." Bernadette did. Siobhan shifted her baby and asked through the wall, "You named him?" Margaret looked at David. They had argued over names for months. David said, "Not yet." Siobhan said, "We've got ours." Martin looked surprised. "We do?" Siobhan said, "We do now." He leaned close. She whispered it. His expression softened. Margaret called, "Well?" Siobhan raised her voice. "Aine." Margaret repeated it. "Lovely." David said, "You'll have to announce ours too, once she decides." Margaret threw a corner of the blanket at him.

The night staff arrived and found the ward full of cups, oranges, wrong slippers and two new babies. Handover took place in low voices. Nora prepared to leave but stopped at both rooms first. Siobhan caught her hand and thanked her. Margaret did the same. Nora dismissed both with a brisk nod because gratitude made her uncomfortable. At the nurses' station she put on her coat while the radio continued. Bernadette asked whether she was going home to watch the count. Nora looked toward the two rooms. Aine had begun crying again. Margaret's son answered from next door as if insulted by the noise. "I've heard enough shouting for one day," Nora said. She buttoned her coat and left.

Inside the ward, the two mothers stayed awake. Martin dozed in the chair, chin on his chest. David had gone to telephone home. June made another cup of tea. Siobhan's daughter settled after feeding. Margaret's son refused. Through the wall, Margaret said, "Yours sleeping?" Siobhan answered, "For the minute." "Show-off." "Natural talent." "You had yours first." "Exactly." Their voices were low now. The corridor lights had been dimmed. Outside, Derry remained noisy in pockets, cars moving, doors opening, radios and televisions glowing behind curtains. Inside, two babies breathed, cried, fed and slept without knowing what any of it meant.

Evelyn Patterson turned the television up at ten because Arthur had asked what everyone was saying and then asked again before she reached the set. Their Belfast sitting room had been arranged around the television for years without either of them admitting it. Two armchairs faced it at slight angles. A low table between them held a tea tray, two cups, a plate of digestive biscuits and Arthur's spectacles, which he had taken off and immediately begun looking for. Evelyn found them beneath the newspaper on his lap. "Here." Arthur took them. "Where were they?" "Under the paper." "I put them there?" "You did." He smiled, faintly embarrassed, and settled them on his nose. On the screen men stood around tables covered in papers. Numbers appeared in white lettering. Behind the presenters, people moved in crowded halls. Arthur leaned forward. "Football?" he asked. Evelyn's hand stopped on the television knob. "No, love." "What is it?" "The referendum." He looked at the screen again. "Ah." For a moment his face seemed to catch the word. Then he picked up a biscuit. "Who are we playing?"

Evelyn sat down beside the tea tray. "Nobody." She poured more tea into his cup, though he had not finished the first. "It's the vote today." Arthur dipped the biscuit. "Did we vote?" "This morning." "Did we?" "Yes." He looked pleased. "Good." The biscuit softened and broke into his tea. Arthur stared at the floating half. Evelyn reached for a spoon and fished it out. "Waste of a good biscuit," he said. She put the soggy piece on his saucer. "Take another." He did.

On the mantel stood photographs accumulated over forty-eight years of marriage: their wedding, three children at school ages, a holiday in Portrush, a granddaughter in a christening gown, Arthur at a union dinner wearing a bow tie too large for his collar. Tucked behind one frame was an old campaign leaflet Arthur had once kept because of a printing error that amused him. It had been there so long that Evelyn no longer noticed it unless dusting. On the shelf beneath the television lay notebooks in which he used to write down election results, constituency figures and names from broadcasts. The most recent stopped after three pages. That evening the notebook remained closed. Evelyn had put a pencil beside it without thinking. Arthur did not reach for either.

The announcer read another result. A cheer rose from somewhere on the broadcast. Arthur looked toward the window. "People outside?" "On the television." "Something happen?" Evelyn told him the figures. He listened politely. "Is that good?" She folded her hands in her lap. "Depends what you wanted." Arthur considered this. "What did I want?" Evelyn looked at him. The question was not new. It had arrived in other forms over the past year: Which church did we go to? Was his brother still alive? Had he worked at the yard or the post office? Once he had asked Evelyn whether they were married while wearing his wedding ring. She had learned that answers could land or slide away. "You voted your own way this morning," she said. "Did I tell you?" "No." "Good man." He nodded, satisfied with his own discretion.

Earlier that day she had taken him to the polling station after breakfast. Their daughter Anne had offered to come, but Evelyn said they would manage. Arthur had dressed himself except for tying his tie. He had known where they were going until halfway down the street, then asked whether they were visiting his sister. Evelyn reminded him. At the school he had recognized the building, though he had never attended it. He had recognized one clerk, called him by the wrong first name, then corrected himself. The process had been explained slowly. Arthur had gone behind the screen alone and remained there long enough that Evelyn had almost asked for help. Then he came out carrying the folded ballot with an expression of immense concentration, placed it in the box and said, "There." Outside he had asked whether she wanted tea. She had said yes. By the cafe he no longer remembered why they were dressed up.

Now the broadcast shifted to another count centre. Evelyn lifted her cup. The tea had gone cold. She drank it anyway. Arthur watched the movement on screen. "That's Belfast?" he asked. "Some of it." "We're in Belfast." "We are." "I know that." His voice sharpened. Evelyn set down the cup. "I know you do." He looked away. After a few seconds he reached for another biscuit and found the plate empty because he had eaten all four. Evelyn went to the kitchen for more.

While she was there the sound from the television rose. Arthur had found the knob and turned it too far. A reporter shouted over cheering. Evelyn stood in the kitchen doorway with the biscuit tin under one arm. Arthur stared at the screen, frightened by the noise. "What's happened?" She crossed quickly and lowered the volume. "Nothing bad." "Who's shouting?" "People at the count." "Why?" She put the tin on the table. "They've heard a result." Arthur looked toward her, then back. "Football?" Evelyn sat down. "No." "What result?" "The referendum." His brow furrowed. "What referendum?"

She opened the biscuit tin and put one on his saucer. "The vote about Ireland." Arthur touched the edge of the saucer. "What about Ireland?" Evelyn breathed through her nose. The broadcast continued at low volume. She said, "Whether the north and south should unite." Arthur's eyes lifted. The words found something. "Ah." He leaned back. "Big thing." "Yes." "Today?" "Today." He looked at the television with renewed attention. "Have they counted Belfast?" "Not all of it." "They'll be late. Always are." The remark sounded so precisely like him that Evelyn's hand tightened around the lid of the biscuit tin. Arthur pointed at the notebook. "Give me that." She passed it to him with the pencil.

He opened to a blank page. His hand hovered. "What was the first one?" Evelyn told him the place and figure she remembered. Arthur wrote the place name slowly. The second letter came out wrong. He crossed it and tried again. Evelyn repeated the number. He wrote two digits, stopped and looked at them. "That's not right." "It's all right." "No, I used to -" His voice broke off. He put the pencil down. "I can't read that." Evelyn looked at the page. The writing was shaky but legible. "I can." "Don't." He closed the notebook sharply and pushed it away. The pencil rolled to the floor. Evelyn bent to pick it up. Arthur turned his face toward the window.

Outside, a car horn sounded twice and stopped. People were beginning to move between houses. A neighbour's front door opened and someone called across the street. Evelyn put the pencil beside the notebook but did not reopen it. Arthur's shoulders had gone rigid beneath his cardigan. She sat again. Neither spoke for a minute. Then he said, "Did I vote?" His voice had softened. "Yes." "This morning?" "Yes." "You with me?" "I was." He looked at her. "Good." She reached across and straightened his cuff. "You did it yourself." He nodded.

Their daughter telephoned at half past ten. Evelyn answered in the hall so Arthur would not be overwhelmed by the ringing. Anne's voice came fast. She had been watching from a friend's house and wanted to know whether her parents had heard the latest numbers. Evelyn listened, glancing through the doorway. Arthur was examining the newspaper upside down. "We've heard some," she said. Anne asked how her father was. Evelyn lowered her voice. "Up and down." Anne offered to come over. Evelyn said no. Anne offered again. Evelyn said, "Stay where you are, love. Enjoy your night." There was a pause. "Mam." Evelyn looked at Arthur. He had turned the newspaper the right way. "We're fine." She listened, then said, "Ring when it's clear." She put down the receiver.

When she returned, Arthur asked who had called. "Anne." "Our Anne?" "Yes." "How is she?" "Fine." "Still in school?" Evelyn sat. "No, love." Arthur looked confused. "She's not?" "She's grown." "Of course she is." He rubbed his forehead. "I know that." Evelyn reached for the teapot. "More?" "A little." She poured. He added sugar, forgot he had added it and reached for the bowl again. Evelyn covered it with her hand. "You did." Arthur looked at the spoon. "Right." He stirred.

The screen showed another hall. People stood three deep behind barriers. A man at a microphone waited for noise to settle. Evelyn turned the sound up slightly. Arthur watched. The result came. It drew a roar from the hall and, a few seconds later, noise from houses outside. Arthur startled but did not look frightened this time. "That one matters," he said. "It does." "Which way?" Evelyn told him. He nodded slowly. "And overall?" "Still counting." "Close?" She hesitated. "Not as close as this morning looked." Arthur leaned back. "Always changes when the boxes open." He took a biscuit and this time ate it without dipping.

For ten minutes he followed the broadcast. He asked sensible questions and remembered the answers long enough to ask the next. Evelyn responded carefully, afraid of speaking too quickly. Arthur named one district before the announcer did. He remembered a politician's surname. When a figure appeared on screen, he added two numbers under his breath and got them right. Evelyn did not praise him. Praise had begun to embarrass him. She simply said, "Yes," when he gave the total. Arthur sat straighter.

Then the presenter mentioned an earlier result and Arthur said, "When's the match?" Evelyn's eyes closed. Only for a second. "No match tonight." "There was." "Not here." "I thought -" He looked around the room. The certainty drained from his posture. "Evelyn?" "I'm here." "What are we watching?" She moved her chair closer until their knees nearly touched. "The referendum count." "Did we vote?" "We did." "Good." He looked down at his hands. "I keep asking you that." Evelyn took his right hand. "You can ask me." He did not pull away.

The waiting stretched. The television repeated totals. Reporters shouted into microphones. Anne telephoned again and Evelyn let it ring four times before answering. "They're saying it may be enough," Anne said. Evelyn heard voices behind her daughter, glasses, somebody laughing. "Is it confirmed?" "Not yet." "Then call when it is." Anne was quiet. "You all right?" Evelyn looked through the doorway. Arthur had closed his eyes. "Yes." "Mam -" "Call when it is, love." She hung up gently.

Arthur was not asleep. "Who was that?" "Anne." "Our Anne?" "Yes." He smiled. "Good girl." Evelyn returned to her chair. Arthur held out his hand without looking and she took it. On the television a reporter stood outside a count centre where people had gathered despite the rain. The sound of singing drifted behind him. Arthur listened. "They happy?" he asked. "Some are." "Some not." "No." He squeezed her fingers. "That's voting." Evelyn looked at him. His eyes remained on the screen.

A little before eleven, the room on television changed. The presenter's voice lost its repetition. He spoke to someone off camera, listened, then turned back. Evelyn sat forward. Arthur noticed and straightened. The figures on the screen shifted. A national total appeared beneath them. For several seconds Evelyn read without understanding because she had spent so many hours waiting for numbers to become an answer. Then the presenter said it plainly. The referendum had passed. The proposal for unity had secured the required majority across the island.

Noise broke outside almost immediately, as if the houses had all been connected by wire. A cheer came from two doors down. Car horns sounded farther along the road. Somewhere a woman shouted a name. The television carried its own roar from crowded halls. Evelyn did not move. Arthur looked from screen to window and back. "Who won?" he asked.

She turned toward him. "The vote for unity passed." Arthur frowned. "Unity?" "North and south." She waited. His mouth opened slightly. He looked at the television again. "They voted for that?" "Yes." "Today?" "Yes." "We voted?" "We did." He looked at her, searching. "How did I vote?" Evelyn's throat tightened. "You didn't tell me." Arthur considered this and smiled faintly. "Good." Outside, another horn sounded. He lifted her hand and patted it. "You always wanted people to mind their own ballot." "So did you." "Did I?" "Very much." "Sensible man."

The telephone began ringing. Evelyn let it. Arthur watched the television. Tears had come into her eyes without warning, blurring the figures. She removed her spectacles and wiped them, though the lenses were clean. Arthur saw. "What's wrong?" "Nothing." "You're crying." She put the spectacles back on. "I know." He looked alarmed. "Did something happen?" Evelyn turned toward him fully. "Something big happened." "Bad?" "No." She answered too quickly, then corrected herself. "Not bad for me." Arthur nodded as if this distinction mattered. "All right." The telephone stopped. A moment later it began again.

Evelyn stood and answered. Anne was crying and talking at once. "Mam, did you hear?" "We heard." "Da knows?" Evelyn looked through the doorway. Arthur was trying to open the biscuit tin. "He heard it." Anne's breath caught. "Does he understand?" Evelyn pressed the receiver more firmly to her ear. "Sometimes." There was silence on the line. Then Anne said, "I'm coming over." Evelyn began to refuse and stopped. "All right." "Ten minutes." "Drive carefully." She hung up.

Arthur had managed the biscuit tin. "These ours?" he asked. "Yes." He offered her one. Evelyn took it and sat. He ate another. The television showed crowds, interviews, men shaking hands, women embracing, others standing apart with closed faces. Evelyn lowered the volume. Arthur chewed thoughtfully. "What are they celebrating?" he asked.

She looked at him for a long moment before answering. "The referendum passed." "Which referendum?" "Ireland." "What about it?" Evelyn placed her biscuit untouched on the saucer. "North and south voted to unite." Arthur stared at the screen. His eyes narrowed as though trying to focus on something beyond it. "That's a big thing." "Yes." "Did we vote?" "Yes." "Together?" "Yes." He reached for her hand. "Good."

Outside, footsteps came quickly along the pavement. A car door slammed. Anne's key turned in the lock. Arthur looked toward the hall. "Who's that?" Evelyn squeezed his hand before letting go. "Our Anne." He smiled. "Good girl." Anne entered the room still wearing her coat, face wet from rain and tears. She crossed straight to him and kissed his cheek. Arthur looked delighted and slightly surprised. "What brings you here?" he asked. Anne knelt beside the chair. For a second she could not answer. Evelyn picked up the teapot, found it empty and carried it toward the kitchen. Behind her Arthur said, "Have we any biscuits for her?" Anne laughed through her tears. Evelyn filled the kettle and set it on the stove while the noise of the street came softly through the closed windows.

Liam O'Rourke was checking the nearside rear tyre when the first horn sounded somewhere beyond the Belfast bus station. It came as one long blast, stopped, then answered by another farther away. He straightened and looked over the roof of the coach toward the city streets. The station itself remained busy in the ordinary late-night way: engines idling, luggage doors banging shut, drivers calling destinations, people hurrying beneath yellow lamps with cases held against their legs. A porter pushing a trolley paused to listen. Someone near the ticket office shouted a question. Another horn answered from outside. Liam wiped his hands on a rag and checked his watch. Ten forty-seven. He still had thirteen minutes before departure. The radio in the driver's cab was too weak to catch much beneath the concrete roof, so he climbed aboard and turned the volume higher. Static, a man's voice, more static. Nothing clear. He left it on and returned to the luggage compartment.

The southbound passengers arrived in uneven groups. A young woman in a red coat handed Liam a suitcase almost too heavy for her to lift. He took it without comment and slid it into the hold. An elderly couple came next, the husband carrying two small cases and refusing help until one slipped from his hand. Liam caught it before it hit the wet pavement. "I've that," he said. The man looked at him, then surrendered the second as well. His wife said, "Thank you," with the satisfaction of someone whose advice had been vindicated. A mother arrived carrying a sleeping toddler against one shoulder and dragging a canvas bag with the other. Liam put the bag away and held the coach rail while she climbed. Two boys of about sixteen came running at the last minute despite there still being eight minutes to spare. One had a football under his coat. The other asked whether the bus would wait in Newry long enough to buy chips. Liam said, "Depends how quickly you buy them." They took this as permission to begin planning.

At five to eleven the coach had twenty-three passengers. Liam moved down the aisle checking tickets because the conductor scheduled for the run had called in sick. Most people were travelling no farther than Newry or Dundalk. Seven had Dublin tickets. One elderly man named Joseph McKeown sat alone near the middle with a walking stick wedged between his knees. A student, Niamh Doyle, occupied the seat opposite with books filling half her lap. The elderly couple were Harold and Edith Mercer, travelling to stay with their daughter outside Drogheda. The mother with the sleeping child, Teresa Burns, sat near the front so she could ask for a stop if the boy was ill. He remained limp against her, mouth open, one shoe missing. Teresa discovered this while Liam was checking her ticket and looked in horror beneath the seat. Liam found the shoe in the aisle three rows back and handed it over. "He throws them," she whispered. "Only when he's asleep." Liam looked at the sleeping boy. "Talented."

A burst of cheering came from the ticket hall. Everyone on the coach turned. The radio in Liam's cab crackled. He stepped forward and adjusted it. A reporter was speaking over noise so loud that half the words vanished. The national result had not yet been formally given, but another declaration had come in. Liam caught the figures and then lost the signal. A man in a brown suit near the back called, "What was it?" Liam repeated only what he had heard. Several passengers reacted at once. One of the teenage boys punched the other's shoulder in excitement. Edith Mercer lowered her eyes to her handbag. Harold sat more rigidly. Niamh looked toward them, then down at her books. Nobody on the bus knew how anyone else had voted except where badges or conversation had made it obvious. Liam turned the radio down before getting back out to close the luggage door.

At eleven exactly, he started the engine. The coach shuddered, settled and rolled out of the station. Belfast streets opened ahead under lamps and wet reflections. People were standing outside pubs and houses, some looking toward radios held in doorways. A group on a corner waved at the bus for no reason beyond wanting to wave at something moving. One of the boys waved back through the glass. The other pulled him down by the sleeve. Teresa's son stirred but did not wake. Liam kept both hands on the wheel.

The radio signal improved once they cleared the centre. A presenter repeated accumulated totals in a measured voice. Liam kept the volume low enough that passengers who did not want it could speak over it. The brown-suited man asked for it louder. Harold Mercer said, "It's loud enough." The man glanced over his shoulder. For a second Liam watched them in the mirror. The brown-suited man turned back without replying. No quarrel followed. Niamh opened a book and read the same page for ten minutes.

Rain began outside Belfast, fine at first, then harder against the windscreen. The wipers moved steadily. Liam knew the road well enough to feel its bends before the headlights found them. Behind him conversation rose and fell. Two women discussed whether a relative in Derry would have stayed up. The boys debated chips. Teresa tried to move her son's head without waking him and failed; he opened his eyes, stared at the dark coach and immediately began to cry. She whispered into his hair. "It's all right, Sean. We're on the bus." The child looked around as though the bus were an offence committed while he slept. Niamh closed her book and leaned across the aisle. "Do you want him to have the window?" Teresa shook her head. "He'll only lick it." Niamh smiled. Sean saw the smile and stopped crying long enough to inspect her.

Joseph McKeown reached into his coat and produced a wrapped barley sugar. Teresa hesitated. "He's only two." Joseph tucked it away again. "Then that's mine." Sean watched the pocket where it disappeared. Joseph said, "See? Interested now." Teresa laughed quietly. She found a wooden toy car in her bag and gave it to the child. Sean rolled it along the window ledge. Niamh returned to her book. Across the aisle Harold Mercer unfolded a newspaper, though the overhead light was barely bright enough to read. Edith took it from him after a minute. "You'll ruin your eyes." "They're already ruined." "Then don't finish them." She folded the paper and placed it beneath her handbag.

The radio presenter stopped mid-sentence and said he was receiving an update. Liam's eyes went to the mirror. Several passengers had heard the change in tone. Conversations died. Even Sean paused his toy car. The voice on the radio became clear for once. More count centres had declared. The figures were read. Then the presenter said that, on the totals available, the required islandwide majority had been reached and the referendum proposal for unity had passed.

For two or three seconds there was no reaction inside the coach at all. The road continued beneath the tyres. Rain struck the windscreen. Then one of the teenage boys shouted, "Yes," before clapping both hands over his mouth. A woman near the back began to cry and laugh together. The brown-suited man said, "There it is." Niamh pressed her fingertips to her lips. Teresa looked down at Sean, who had resumed driving the wooden car along the window. Harold Mercer's face did not move. Edith put one gloved hand over his.

Outside, a house beside the road flashed its porch light on and off. At the next junction two cars sounded their horns. Liam turned the radio down another notch. Nobody asked him to. The excited boy leaned across his friend and looked toward the elderly couple, then sat back without speaking. Niamh closed her book completely and put it into her bag. The woman who had begun crying took a handkerchief from her sleeve. She looked around as if searching for someone with whom to share the moment, saw Harold and Edith and instead faced the window. Her smile remained but she kept it to herself.

A minute later Joseph McKeown said, "Well." It was impossible to tell from the word what he had wanted. The brown-suited man answered, "Aye." Joseph adjusted his stick. "Road's still wet." The brown-suited man looked toward the window and laughed softly. "That it is." Liam heard them and kept driving.

The first call came from Teresa. "Driver?" Liam glanced at the mirror. "Aye?" "Will we still stop at Newry?" One of the boys laughed. Teresa turned. "I'm serious. Everyone's talking like the island moved." Liam said, "We're stopping at Newry." "And the border?" "Unless they've lifted it in the last three minutes, we'll stop where we normally stop." This drew a few smiles. Harold Mercer looked toward the front. "Quite right," he said. Liam nodded once in the mirror.

Sean began to fuss again. Teresa tried to settle him on her lap, but the boy had reached the stage of tiredness in which every position was wrong. He kicked one shoe off. Niamh caught it before it reached the aisle. "Again," she said. Teresa closed her eyes. "I told you." Niamh handed it back. "He has range." Teresa put the shoe in her handbag rather than on his foot. Edith Mercer unbuttoned her coat and took out a small knitted blanket folded over her knees. She leaned across the aisle. "Would this help?" Teresa looked surprised. "I couldn't." "You could. He's cold." Teresa took the blanket. "I'll give it back before you get off." Edith said, "If he gives it back clean, I'll consider it a miracle." Sean was wrapped in it. He immediately grabbed the edge and put it in his mouth. Edith sighed. "There goes the miracle."

The laugh that moved through the nearest seats loosened the coach. It was not a cheer. It did not require agreement. Teresa tucked the blanket around her son. Harold adjusted the vent above Edith so cold air stopped falling on her. Niamh reopened her book but held it without reading.

At a roadside stop south of Belfast, three passengers got off and two boarded. One of the new passengers was a middle-aged nurse in a dark coat carrying a square case. She climbed the steps and looked at the faces as if she had entered a room halfway through an argument. "Did I miss it?" she asked Liam. "Result's through." She stopped with one hand on the rail. "Passed?" "Passed." The nurse closed her eyes briefly. Then she nodded and paid her fare. Behind her, a young man in a flat cap climbed on and asked the same question. Liam gave the same answer. The man said nothing, paid and took a seat near the back.

When the coach moved again, the nurse sat beside Joseph McKeown because the seat was free. She introduced herself as Aileen when he offered to move his stick. Joseph said, "You've come from work." She looked at her uniform shoes. "Obvious?" "Only to anyone with eyes." She asked whether he had been listening all night. Joseph said he had been listening all day and was beginning to dislike the sound of numbers. Aileen laughed. "You'll get more before bed." "Not if I can help it." He tapped the stick lightly against his shoe.

The teenage boys began whispering about the result. Liam could not hear all of it. One had clearly wanted the outcome and the other seemed less certain. Their disagreement remained low until the excited one said, "But it means -" and the other interrupted, "I know what it means." The first boy stopped. After a pause he said, "Sorry." The second stared out the window. "My da won't be happy." "Mine'll be dancing." "Your da dances when the dog comes home." The first boy snorted. The second did too. A moment later they were talking about chips again.

Harold Mercer spoke for the first time since the announcement when Niamh's bag slid into the aisle on a bend. He caught it with his shoe. "You'll lose that." Niamh leaned down. "Thanks." He nudged it toward her. She picked it up and tucked the strap around her ankle. "Sorry." Harold returned his attention to the window. After a minute Niamh said, "Do you want the overhead light?" He looked at her. "What for?" "Your paper." Edith answered, "He's been banned from reading." Harold said, "By an unelected authority." Niamh's smile appeared and vanished. She switched her own light off instead.

Newry came into view in patches of lamps. The bus station was busier than usual for the hour. People stood outside beneath umbrellas. Some carried flags rolled under their arms; others simply waited for arrivals. Liam pulled into the bay. The two boys were on their feet before the coach stopped. "Five minutes," he told them. "Not seven. Not ten. Five." They ran toward the chip shop across the road. Teresa stood to stretch her legs but did not get off because Sean had fallen asleep again beneath Edith's blanket. Harold and Edith remained seated. Niamh stepped onto the pavement and stood beneath the station awning, breathing cold air.

Liam got out and walked around the coach checking tyres and luggage latches. A man from the station staff approached, grinning. "You've heard?" Liam said yes. The man shook his head as if words were insufficient. "Never thought I'd be working tonight." "Somebody has to drive buses." "Aye." The man looked toward the coach. "Mixed crowd?" Liam followed his glance. "Crowd." The answer was enough. The station man nodded.

The chip-shop boys returned at a run carrying one parcel and two forks. "Shop was packed," one said. Liam looked at his watch. "Six minutes." "Only one over." "Get on." They climbed aboard. The smell of vinegar filled the coach immediately. Half the passengers complained. Teresa woke Sean accidentally by laughing. The boys offered chips around to make peace. Joseph accepted two. Aileen accepted one. Niamh refused, changed her mind and took three. One boy leaned forward and offered the parcel to Harold. Harold looked at it. "I've teeth left." He took one chip. Edith took two.

Liam closed the door and pulled out. Newry slipped behind. The road south darkened between settlements. On the radio the presenter was interviewing politicians, but Liam lowered the volume until only cadence remained. The bus no longer needed every word. Passengers supplied their own.

A woman near the back began singing under her breath. It was not a political song, just an old melody Liam knew from his mother. Another passenger joined for a few lines, then stopped when it became clear not everyone wanted singing. The woman did not take offence. She looked out the window and continued silently, lips moving.

Aileen the nurse opened her case and found a packet of mints. She offered them to Joseph. He accepted one. "You voted before work?" he asked. "On the way." "Long shift?" "Long enough." "Good day?" Aileen considered. "Three people discharged. One man stopped trying to leave with his drip attached. Good enough." Joseph nodded. "Better than numbers." "Much better." They sat in companionable silence.

Teresa shifted Sean from one arm to the other. Edith saw and held out her hands. "I'll take him for a minute if you want." Teresa hesitated. "He's heavy." "So was mine." Harold looked at his wife. "Still are." Edith ignored him. Teresa carefully passed Sean across the aisle. The child stirred, opened his eyes and found himself against a stranger's coat. His face crumpled. Edith said, "No need for that. Your mam's there." Teresa leaned close. Sean looked between them, decided the arrangement was acceptable and put his head against Edith's chest. Harold watched. Edith adjusted the blanket around him. "There," she said.

For ten minutes Teresa sat with both hands empty in her lap. She flexed her fingers as though she had forgotten what that felt like. Niamh noticed and offered her a cigarette, then remembered the child and put the packet away. Teresa smiled. "Later." She looked across at Edith holding Sean. "How many did you have?" "Two girls." "Close together?" "Eleven months." Teresa stared. "Eleven?" Edith nodded. "Harold wasn't allowed near me for a year after." Harold, still looking out the window, said, "This is slander." "It's arithmetic." Niamh laughed into her sleeve.

The border approached without announcement. Liam knew it from the road, the lights ahead and the change in markings. The inspection point was still operating. Uniformed men stood beneath lamps. A barrier remained down. The coach slowed. Conversation faded. Teresa took Sean back from Edith and wrapped him. The boys folded the chip paper and stuffed it into a pocket. Niamh put her book away. Harold sat straighter.

Liam stopped at the usual place and opened the door. An official climbed aboard with a clipboard. He had clearly heard the result; everyone had. His face gave nothing away. "Evening." A scattered chorus answered. He spoke briefly with Liam, checked the coach paperwork and walked the aisle. There was no passport inspection for most travellers, but questions were asked where necessary, goods declared where necessary, procedures followed because the referendum result had not dissolved a border post by magic. The official reached the teenage boys and looked at the football under one coat. "Smuggling sporting equipment?" The boy pulled it out. "Only this." The official looked at his companion. "Dangerous cargo." The boys grinned.

At Harold and Edith's seat, the official recognized Harold. "Mr. Mercer." Harold looked up. "Tom." The official nodded toward Edith. "Mrs. Mercer." She greeted him. The familiarity passed without politics. At Teresa's seat Sean woke and stared at the uniform. The official wiggled two fingers at him. Sean hid his face in his mother's coat. "Wise lad," the official said. Teresa smiled.

The inspection took little time. Before stepping off, the official paused near Liam. Outside the open door, rain silvered the light. From the southern side of the crossing another uniformed man stood waiting by a hut. The official said quietly, "Strange night." Liam rested one hand on the wheel. "Busy one." The man looked back at the passengers. "Safe road." "Thanks." He stepped down. The barrier lifted.

The coach rolled forward perhaps a hundred yards and stopped again at the corresponding post. Another official boarded, older, broad-faced and wet at the shoulders. "Evening, all." The passengers answered with more energy this time. Someone near the back said, "Some evening." The official gave a small smile. "So I'm told." He checked the paperwork and moved through. At the boys he found the same football. "Anything to declare?" "One football." "Any talent with it?" The quieter boy said, "Not much." The official nodded. "No duty on that, then." This drew laughter from the coach, including Harold.

When the second barrier lifted, Liam checked the clock. Eleven forty-three. He eased the coach onto the road toward Dundalk. Nobody cheered at the crossing. It would have felt forced. Instead conversations resumed. Edith asked Teresa whether Sean always slept through travel. Niamh asked Harold whether he wanted his newspaper back from Edith. The boys argued about which one had eaten more chips. Aileen opened another mint. Joseph tapped his stick in time with the faint music now playing on the radio.

A few miles south, the rain eased. Liam switched the wipers to intermittent. The road ahead shone under the headlights. He could see lights from farmhouses set back in darkness. In one gateway three people stood beside a parked car listening to a radio. As the bus passed, one lifted an arm. Liam flashed the headlights once. The passengers nearest the front saw and waved through the glass.

The brown-suited man, who had said little since the result, came forward to the seat behind Liam. "Driver." "Aye?" "What time into Dundalk?" Liam told him. The man nodded, then stayed where he was. After a moment he said, "My brother's meeting me." "He know the bus is on time?" "He'll assume it's late." "Then he'll be pleasantly disappointed." The man looked toward the windscreen. "He voted the other way." Liam waited, unsure whether a reply was required. The man rubbed the brim of his hat between his hands. "We've been rowing for six weeks." Liam said, "You can stop tonight." The man looked at him. Liam kept his eyes on the road. "Bus stops whether people row or not." The man gave a short laugh. "Fair enough." He returned to his seat.

Niamh eventually began speaking with Harold and Edith. It started with the university crest on one of her books. Edith asked what she studied. "History." Harold made a sound that could have meant approval or warning. "Plenty of work tonight." Niamh smiled. "Too much." Edith asked whether her family was in Dublin. Niamh said her mother and two sisters were. Harold asked why she had been in Belfast. "Friend's family." She did not offer more. He nodded.

The conversation paused. Then Niamh said, "I'm sorry if the shouting earlier was a lot." Harold looked at her. "You didn't shout." "No, but -" "Other people are allowed to be pleased." Edith's hand rested on his sleeve. Harold continued, "I'm allowed not to be." Niamh nodded. "Yes." Harold looked back at the window. "There. Solved." Edith gave Niamh a faint smile. Niamh reopened her book, but this time she read.

At Dundalk the platform held perhaps thirty people, far more than normally met the late coach. Some had come for passengers. Others seemed to have come simply because buses from the north were arriving. Liam pulled in slowly. The door opened and sound entered: greetings, laughter, one burst of applause that embarrassed everyone nearest it. The brown-suited man stood. Through the windscreen Liam saw another man waiting by the barrier with hands in his coat pockets. He resembled the passenger enough to be the brother. The brown-suited man took his case from the rack and stepped down. The waiting brother approached. Neither man cheered. They stood close, spoke, then embraced quickly and separated as though caught doing something private.

The teenage boys got off for good at Dundalk. They thanked Liam and ran toward a man who was clearly one boy's father. One shouted the result before reaching him. The father shouted back, "I heard," and caught the boy in a rough hug. The quieter boy hung back. The father saw, opened his other arm and pulled him in too. Both disappeared into the crowd.

Aileen the nurse also got off. Joseph offered his hand. She shook it. "Safe home." "You too." She stepped onto the platform and vanished among waiting people. Three new passengers boarded for Dublin, apologizing for the crowd. One young man carried a bunch of flowers wrapped in paper. Another had a suitcase tied with rope. A woman in her sixties carried a cake tin and refused to put it in the luggage hold. Liam found space for it overhead.

Teresa considered getting off to buy milk for Sean, but the child was sleeping again and the queue at the kiosk was long. Edith produced a small bottle from her bag. "It's only water." Teresa accepted. "You've a whole house in there." Edith said, "Two daughters taught me." Harold added, "She could invade a country from that handbag." Edith said, "You'd forget your own head if I didn't carry it." Harold smiled.

Liam closed the door and checked the time. Eleven fifty-two. Dublin remained a long way ahead, but the day itself was nearly finished. He pulled away from the platform. People waved. Some passengers waved back. Joseph did not, but he lifted his stick slightly when a small boy outside saluted the bus.

The radio began another news summary. Liam left it low. The presenter repeated the result and spoke about statements from political leaders, administrative steps and the work that would follow. Most passengers had stopped listening closely. The information could wait until morning. The coach had become its own small room. Teresa dozed with Sean against her. Edith rested her head on Harold's shoulder. Niamh read under the light. Joseph watched the road. The young man with flowers kept checking that the paper had not crushed. The cake tin rattled softly on bends.

At eleven fifty-six Sean woke, twisted in his mother's arms and announced, "Drink," with the authority of a magistrate. Teresa opened the water bottle. He rejected it because it was not milk. Edith offered him the corner of the knitted blanket. He accepted the blanket and forgot the drink. Teresa whispered, "Thank you." Edith said, "Keep it until Dublin." "We're off before that." "Then keep it until you're off." Harold opened one eye. "You're never seeing that blanket again." Edith said, "I know." Teresa protested, "You are." Edith patted Sean's foot. "We'll negotiate."

The coach passed through another dark village. A pub door opened as they went by, spilling light across the pavement. People inside were singing, though Liam could not make out the song. Across the road an older man stood alone beneath an awning smoking a cigarette and watching them pass. He raised his hand. Liam lifted two fingers from the wheel.

At eleven fifty-eight Joseph moved from his seat to the one behind Liam, walking carefully with the stick while the bus was straight. "You're not stopping, are you?" he asked. "Not unless you want off in a hedge." Joseph sat. "No." He looked through the broad windscreen. "I used to drive lorries this road." "Aye?" "Before you were born." Liam smiled. "Most things happened before I was born, according to passengers." Joseph ignored that. "Border was a nuisance on nights." "Still is." "Still there tonight." "It is." Joseph looked at the dashboard clock. "Funny thing." Liam glanced at him. Joseph shook his head. "Nothing. Drive."

At eleven fifty-nine the minute hand on Liam's watch moved. He did not announce it. No one on the coach counted down. There was no reason to. The referendum had been decided. The road had not changed beneath the wheels. The lamps still stood where they had stood on the outward journey. The same bends came in the same order. Liam shifted gear as the coach climbed a gentle rise.

Behind him, Harold woke enough to ask Edith whether she had their daughter's address. Edith opened her handbag and took out a folded paper. "Of course I have." "Just checking." "That's my line." Niamh turned a page. Teresa kissed the top of Sean's head. The young man with flowers carefully straightened one bent stem. Joseph settled his stick between his knees.

The clock reached midnight only after the bus had passed the rise, but the last second of the referendum day belonged to the road before it: wet, dark, ordinary, running south beneath the headlights while people who had marked different boxes sat under the same warm roof and travelled on.