FREDA FINALLY sat for a few minutes wind down before going to bed. She leaned forward and poked aimlessly at the dying embers of the fire.

She still lit a fire every night it gave her some sense of the movement of life, as a counterpoint to her unsupported loneliness. Her three children, aged 14, 10 and six years, were at last asleep.

Although she was very tired and seemed to be getting more tired as the months passed Freda found it hard to settle herself to go to bed.

Since her separation two and a half years earlier, managing the children had been her greatest concern and anxiety. It left little time for awareness of her own plight, of her unfulfilled dreams, of her anger, of her sense of failure and isolation and even of her uncertainty about whether she should feel guilty or not. These unspoken, unexpressed struggles made the work with the children all the more difficult.

She worried about her almost constant irritableness with them at times she was positively short tempered. She was unable to feel interested in what they were doing at school, and their constant demands for money were another worry.

The children didn't, or didn't want to, understand her explanation that she had to pay a mortgage as well as meet all the household bills. The money their father sent barely kept them in school uniforms and shoes.

As she sat, she caught herself depressing herself again. She had become good at that. It added to life's difficulty. She often wondered was she going to break down she kept fighting that idea she had to keep well for the children.

Her job was a great help to her. No matter what happened, she had to be in school at nine each morning. It also, of course, guaranteed her enough money to keep going.

Bernie, her closest friend on the staff, advised her to see a counsellor, but Freda felt that to do so would be to admit defeat. She must be strong enough. Bernie told her that she was being too hard on herself. Maybe Maybe. ..? She'd think about it.

Anyway, there was the cost. She felt anger rise within and she swallowed and tightened.

This tension really became impossible at times. It felt like she might explode. She smiled to herself at the thought of an explosion and visualised herself in pieces all over the room. Then she shivered in fear. Maybe a counsellor could help?

What seemed hardest of all was when the children fought with each other then, when she intervened they turned on her.

John, the eldest, said to her the other day that he'd prefer to live with his father he wasn't always giving out like she was. The others were like a Greek chorus in his support.

It made her feel miserable. She didn't know what to say or think. She knew that their father didn't want them, except for their fort nightly weekend visits to his house in Dublin. She couldn't say that to them Bernie had warned her not to belittle their father to them.

HE COULD BE ALL things great and good when he had them only for a Saturday and most of a Sunday once a fortnight. He took them swimming and for hikes in the mountains and picnics and to the pictures, and of course, for the inevitable visit to McDonalds. She had neither the energy nor the funds for all of this and, anyway, she knew that this wasn't how life was meant to be it would give them a false impression both of their father and of reality. But there was nothing she could do about this.

When they returned from these visits to their father, size had all the struggle to help them settle down again not to mention their washing returned undone. She could get over that, if they didn't compare her, so unkindly, to him and his cheerful moods.

This was really the worst of all. At times she wondered if they knew that she really loved them. She felt so bad tempered at times she found herself wondering whether she really loved them enough.

Goodness knows what damage she might be doing them. Would they turn against her when they grew up?

She found Mary, her 10 year old, particularly difficult. This rocking on her bed at night started again almost immediately after the separation. She hadn't done it for years, not since she had been three or four. Mary missed her Dad terribly.

At times she seemed so withdrawn and pale. She had stopped going out with her friends and was asking questions like "Why don't you tell Daddy you love him and ask him to come home?" What could she say? How could a 10 year old understand?

Suddenly she felt totally isolated and tears made her eyes blink. "Oh God Please try to find a counsellor. Life can be really hard. Surely we're not meant to journey alone." She checked the windows and doors and went towards her bedroom.