The Exiles

with relief and bending to read the page he held out to her.
    Mr Conroy, after quickly working it out on his fingers, explained that he hadn’t actually an Uncle, but he had a Great Aunt (who had been gone for years), and she had married for a second time late in life. Which would mean, concluded Mr Conroy, that he had a Great Step-Uncle who he’d never met.
    ‘And never will now,’ added Mrs Conroy as she finished reading.
    ‘They’ll have come down on us for the funeral expenses,’ said Mr Conroy in the melancholy tone of one who has lost an unknown relative and gained a large bill.
    ‘Really John,’ exclaimed Mrs Conroy crossly, ‘why must you always think the worst! Read the letter and stop talking rubbish!’
    Still standing on the doorstep, feeling rather bemused and getting very hungry, Mr Conroy took the letter back and turned to the second sheet, reading it partly to himself, and partly out loud to his wife.
    ‘Bequests include fifty-thousand pounds and all property to his home help,’ remarked Mr Conroy, showing no emotion at this revelation. ‘Very nice for her.
    ‘Fifty thousand pounds to Cat’s Protection League.
    ‘Fifty thousand pounds towards paying off the National Debt,’ continued Mr Conroy. ‘He must have been quite a character.
    ‘Ten thousand pounds to each surviving nephew or niece. That would have pleased my mother.
    ‘Five thousand pounds to each surviving great nephew or niece!’
    ‘That’s you!’ said Mrs Conroy.
    ‘Well, fancy him thinking of me!’ Mr Conroy looked up, beaming. ‘And you’ve been getting yourself so upset! It’s about the best thing that ever happened to me! After marrying you,’ he added gallantly, seeing Mrs Conroy’s face.
    ‘And the girls,’ prompted Mrs Conroy. ‘And I’m bound to be a bit upset the morning I’ve had and now thinking he’s gone and we shan’t be able to thank him, and as for him leaving all that money to those cats and that home help …’
    ‘Well, don’t worry about them,’ said Mr Conroy sensibly. ‘What about our bit? Think what the girls are going to say!’
    They both thought about what the girls would say.
    ‘I don’t know if we should tell them anything about it,’ said Mrs Conroy eventually. ‘There’ll be no peace at all, once they find out. We ought to just keep quiet until we decide what to do.’
    Mr Conroy quite agreed. ‘And then we’ll surprise them,’ he said.

    That evening a strange thing happened in the Conroy household. Instead of cold meat left over from Sunday for tea they had steak and mushrooms.
    ‘Why?’ asked the girls. ‘What’s today?’
    Their parents were not exactly smiling, but they had a complacent look about them.
    ‘You deserve a treat now and then,’ they said. It was all a bit mysterious.

    During the course of breakfast on Tuesday morning Rachel and Phoebe remarked several times that they needed carrier bags to take to school that day.
    ‘Why?’ asked Mrs Conroy, who could never find a bag when she wanted one. Then, noticing the grass stains on her daughters’ dresses for the first time, she added, ‘What on earth have you been doing? You look like goodness knows what! Why didn’t you put your clothes in the wash last night? Go and take them off!’
    ‘The teachers said to bring carrier bags,’ Phoebe told her, patiently persisting in sticking to the main issue even while being hauled back up to her bedroom.
    ‘Well, you can tell them,’ Mrs Conroy pulled Phoebe’s dress over her head without unbuttoning it, so that Phoebe’s ears nearly came off, ‘that I’m not supplying them with carrier bags. They’ve just had all that jam for the bazaar! They’re always wanting something at that school. Rachel! Just look at your knees! Green! Wash them!’
    ‘They’re to put our pictures and projects in,’ Rachel explained, vaguely licking her knees and rubbing them with a sock as she spoke. ‘Everyone’s got to take them, to bring their pictures and projects home.’ It was a triumph that Rachel had been looking forward to for weeks.
    ‘Well, I suppose I might manage to find one for you,’ Mrs Conroy said grudgingly as she finished buttoning up Phoebe and gave her a gentle smack to start her off.
    ‘Can I have two?’ asked Phoebe.
    ‘Can I borrow your shopping bag?’ asked Rachel, regarding her knees with satisfaction, ‘I’ve got an awful lot to bring home.’
    ‘You can get off to school, the pair of you,’ ordered Mrs Conroy, hurrying